You know of Pete Buttigieg by now, right? Since announcing a White House bid earlier this year, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor has gone from political obscurity to a media sensation. He's garnered attention for everything from his interesting policy proposals to adorable tales of his courtship with hubby Chasten. But his true breakout moments tend to involve President Donald Trump. Whether he's snubbing Trump's age or blasting the president's bone spurs diagnosis, Buttigieg has earned quite a reputation for making wild comments about his 2020 rival. Let's go ahead and look at five of Pete Buttigieg's quotes about Donald Trump, because they're too good to miss.
They'll probably be funny to see because ever since Trump won the presidency back in 2016, he's come to be known for his verbal slap-fights and fiery tweets, aimed at Democrats and Republicans alike. He's lashed out at everyone from President Barack Obama and the late Republican Senator John McCain to Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Lindsey Graham. While many people have shied away from the drama, it appears that Trump has finally found a match in Buttigieg.
Check out these five instances where the budding politician has sounded off on the president with some Trump-like sass.
Despite Trump's campaign promise to defend LGBTQ+ rights, he doesn't have exactly the best track record on the matter — and Buttigieg made sure to highlight that after Trump said he is "absolutely fine" with the mayor's gay marriage in a May 2019 interview with Fox News.
"Even though they’re paying lip service to the idea of — like the president was asked about my marriage, so he could have the opportunity to say he’s fine with it," Buttigieg said during a May 17 campaign event in Iowa, according to ABC News. "That’s nice."
He then referenced a May 15 report from The Daily Beast that said children of LGBTQ+ families born with assisted reproductive technology outside the United States may now be considered born out of wedlock and not automatically guaranteed U.S. citizenship, even if their parents are American citizens.
A Department of State official pointed Elite Daily to the operational guidance, which states in part, "A child born abroad to a surrogate, whose genetic parents are a U.S. citizen father and anonymous egg donor, is considered for citizenship purposes to be a person born out of wedlock of a U.S. citizen father, with a citizenship claim adjudicated under INA 309(a). This is the case regardless of whether the man is married and regardless of whether his spouse is the legal parent of the child at the time of birth. A child born abroad to a surrogate, whose genetic parents are a U.S. citizen father and the surrogate (mother) who is not married to the U.S. citizen father is considered for citizenship purposes to be a person born out of wedlock of a U.S. citizen father, with a citizenship claim adjudicated under INA 309(a). Note that in such a case, despite the genetic and gestational connection, the surrogate mother is not the legal parent of the child at the time of birth, usually pursuant to a surrogacy agreement."
"We find out this week that they changed the State Department guidance — I don’t know if you saw this," Buttigieg continued in his May 2019 Fox interview. "So if you are, for example, in an international adoption scenario, and you’re a same-sex couple, as far as the United States government is concerned, you have a child born out of wedlock. Think about what that means. It means you are not a citizen of the same country as your own child at the time that they are born. And that’s discrimination."
A bunch of people want Trump impeached over the Mueller report into potential collusion between Russia and members of the Trump 2016 campaign — including Buttigieg. Although the report found no collusion, it expressly noted that it did not clear the president of obstruction of justice, which has prompted widespread criticism.
Buttigieg offered his thoughts on whether Trump should be removed from office in April during a CNN town hall, saying, “He’s made it pretty clear he deserves impeachment." According to The Huffington Post, the 2020 candidate ultimately said the decision should rest with Congress, adding that the best way to get Trump out of office is by giving him “an absolute thumping at the ballot box.”
Well played.
This one came in March 2019 during a CNN Town Hall. What sucks is the fact that Trump wasn't even the topic of conversation (LOL).
When asked if Vice President Mike Pence would be a better president than Trump, Buttigieg said, "How could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency?"
What a way to describe Trump's presidency, which has been marred by accusations from adult film star Stormy Daniels. Daniels claimed in 2018 that she had an affair with the president in 2006, which Trump has denied, although he admitted to knowing about payments to her during the 2016 election cycle, although he denied knowing of them in advance. So awkward. The White House did not immediately respond to Elite Daily's request for comment on Buttigieg's remarks.
Buttigieg really stuck it to Trump during a March 2019 appearance on The Intercept's podcast Deconstructed, which features columnist Mehdi Hasan. During the chat, the politician spoke on Trump's rise to the White House, attributing it to some pretty distasteful things.
"It’s no secret that this president came to power largely by turning people against one another and by taking advantage of the use of white nationalism," he told the host. "He doesn’t want to acknowledge that it’s a problem, probably because he’s sympathetic to it." Elite Daily reached out to the White House for comment on the remark, but did not immediately hear back.
It wasn't the first time a political observer has suggested that Trump's rhetoric emboldens white nationalists. He received massive backlash in 2017 after saying there were "very fine people on both sides" following a deadly white supremacist rally. But the president has downplayed the apparent rise of white nationalism altogether. On March 15, following a deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Trump told reporters, per The Guardian:
I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s a case. I don’t know enough about it yet.
According to Trump, he was able to avoid the Vietnam War because of educational deferments and a medical deferment on the grounds of bone spurs in his heels. Buttigieg, however, isn't buying it.
While speaking on the subject in a May 23 interview with The Washington Post, Buttigieg, who served in the Afghanistan War, alleged that Trump's claims were fake, and said he has a "pretty dim view of [Trump's] decision to use his privileged status to fake a disability in order to avoid serving in Vietnam." When asked if he thought the condition was fake, Buttigieg didn't hold back. According to The Hill, he said:
Yeah, at least not that one. This is actually really important because I don’t mean to trivialize disability, but I think that’s exactly what he did.
The White House did not respond to Elite Daily's request for comment on the remark by the time of publication.
Well then. Buttigieg has been increasingly commenting on the president since joining the 2020 pool, so you might want to brace yourself for even wilder remarks. Maybe we'll even get a clapback or two from Trump himself.
