South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg says President Donald Trump has "made it pretty clear that he deserves impeachment," but he will "leave it to the House and Senate to figure that out."

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate of Maltese descent was asked about the call from some people in his party for Trump's impeachment following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's redacted report looking into connections between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign as well as obstruction of justice. Mueller found no evidence of conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign but reached no verdict on obstruction.

Buttigieg says, "My role in the process is trying to relegate Trumpism to the dustbin of history."

He continued: "And I think there is no more decisive way to do that, especially to get Republicans to abandon this deal with the devil they made, than to have just an absolute thumping at the ballot box for what that represents."

Buttigieg said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump are "stupendously different in very, very many respects" as he tried to smooth over an earlier comparison of the two politicians.

At a CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Monday night, Buttigieg noted that anti-establishment energy "can find its way in a number of very different political directions."

He says recent history shows that voters aren't just focused on "are you close to me on a left-right political spectrum." Rather, he said, they want to know: "Are you really going to profoundly change the system that we're living in?"

Sanders and Buttigieg are among the Democrats seeking the party's nomination to take on Trump in the 2020 election.

Buttigieg says he doesn't believe convicted criminals in prison should be able to vote.

He said Monday at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire that part of the punishment when someone is convicted of a crime is losing certain rights.

That stands in stark contrast to the position taken earlier Monday by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said he believes felons — even including people like Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — should be able to keep their right to vote. He says the right to vote "is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people."

California Sen. Kamala Harris said she thinks "we should have that conversation" about whether convicted criminals like Tsarnaev should be able to keep their right to vote.

Tsarnaev killed three people and injured hundreds in 2013 with a pair of pressure-cooker bombs and was sentenced to death.