Vice President Pete? Buttigieg Makes His Case to Become Kamala’s Running Mate

Michigan’s favorite gay dad goes viral over Fox News interview

Pete Buttigieg on "The Daily Show" on July 29, 2024. Screengrab/Comedy Central

Published: July 30, 2024 | Last Updated: July 30, 2024

Kamala Harris’s whirlwind campaign is in full whirl, with excitement building around who will become the candidate’s pick for vice president. While Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has made it clear she is not interested in the role, another Michigan contender seems to be making his case in a series of media appearances over the past several days: U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

The unflappable, even-keeled gay dad — who owns a house in Traverse City with husband Chasten — is a stark contrast to the flailing, all-over-the-map JD Vance, who at one point campaigned on an entire “Trump is Hilter” talking point and who has reversed course on virtually every political issue since entering the public arena.

On July 28, Buttigieg appeared on Fox News Sunday to discuss immigration and crime and came loaded to bear with those pesky weapons MAGA adherents fear the most: facts.

Speaking with anchor Shannon Bream, Buttigieg debunked a tall tale Republicans spun several times during last month’s Republican National Convention — the notion that under President Biden’s administration, immigration and crime were highly correlated. In other words, a spike in violent crimes is being committed by immigrants after illegally crossing the border. "Crime is down under Joe Biden and crime was up under Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said. “Now, I don't know how often that gets reported on this network, so if you're watching this at home, do yourself a favor and look up the data ... why would America want to go back to the higher crime that we experienced under Donald Trump?"

Bream attempted a classic Fox News “gotcha” moment by asking Buttigieg if President Biden was aware of how badly he had been doing in the polls. Buttigieg was happy to oblige, despite Bream’s repeated attempts to interrupt him.

“I’m aware of how he was doing. We’re all aware of how he’s doing,” Buttigieg said. “Our country has watched our president lead, and yes, we’ve also seen the fact that he’s 10 years older than he was 10 years ago. But unlike Republicans, who in Trump’s personality cult will take a look at Donald Trump and say he’s perfectly fine, even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter, even though he is clearly older and stranger than he was when America first got to know him.

“They say he’s strong as an ox, leaps tall buildings in a single bound. We don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side,” he continued. “On the contrary, the president confronted that reality in what must have been one of the most difficult decisions for an American president to make ever. And he did something that I don’t think Donald Trump could even conceive of doing, which is putting his own interests aside for the country.”

Boom.

Other Buttigieg insights that had Bream thoroughly knocked off balance included:

"The idea that somebody hasn't been tested or vetted when they have been vice president of the United States for nearly four years just doesn't make any sense."

"He even broke his promise to that J6 mob when he said, 'I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol.' But he actually did keep two promises: He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country, and he kept his promise on tax cuts to the rich ... he lies all the time."

"Unlike Republicans who in Trump's personality cult will take a look at Donald Trump and say he's perfectly fine even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Haley and Pelosi, even though he's rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter."

Over on MSNBC and during an appearance on “The Daily Show,” Buttigieg had some things to say about Trump’s VP pick. Vance, he told Jon Stewart, has “systematically insulted so many people” — including those who don’t have children, who Vance said “have no physical commitment to the future of this country.”

“When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I didn’t have kids back then, but I will tell you, especially when there was a rocket attack going on, my commitment to this country felt pretty physical,” Buttigieg said, to wild applause from the studio audience.

The “framing is perfect,” Stewart replied. “It points to that idea that, ‘Who are you to tell what’s in someone else’s heart about what they feel about the future or what they feel about this country?’ And the sacrifices that you made, as you said, without having had children, were tremendous.”

Buttigieg delivered an eloquent soliloquy about Vance’s “weirdness” to MSNBC’s Jen Paski:

Where do you start? You know, they selected somebody who really reminds many Americans of why they are off-put by the turn that the Republican Party has taken in the last two years. It's not just that he's said a lot of things that are weird or insulting, like the characterization of the Democratic Party as "childless cat ladies." It's also that he seems to view everything in terms of the negative.

For example, this thing about having children. I think a lot of us who have had kids would certainly say that the experience opens you to a new way of thinking about the world. But he doesn't talk about it in those terms. He talks about how anybody who doesn't have kids is less than, that their perspectives have less value, which is just a really strange take.

It is not just a weird style that he brings. This leads to weird policies, like his proposal that the number of votes you get in an election would be different depending on how many kids you have. I mean, I would think one person, one vote was a pretty basic, universally accepted principle in this country. There are so many strange policy commitments that he has. I guess what I would most want to see in this debate, whoever is at the table with him, is getting into that relationship between a strange worldview and a strange set of policies.

Let's also remember his relationship to Project 2025. It's kind of amazing they put all this stuff out there. I think it is also telling that this is the first time I can remember that a comprehensive policy framework for a political party has been so profoundly unpopular that the president, the candidate of that party, has to pretend he's got nothing to do with it.

It is definitely the roadmap for a future Trump administration. JD.. Vance, having him on the ticket basically certifies that fact. JD Vance wrote the foreword to the forthcoming book by the Heritage Foundation president. It's the institutional home of Project 2025, which means it is basically Project 2025, the book. It couldn't be more on the nose in terms of revealing where a Trump presidency would take this country. As Kamala Harris says so effectively, where it would take us is backward.

Buttigieg’s media blitz has gone viral online, and at least one member of the Harris team has taken notice. Director of rapid response for the campaign Ammar Moussa called Buttigieg’s interview a “master class” on X, a sentiment echoed by Democratic strategist Lis Smith, who tweeted, “"@PeteButtigieg just led an absolute masterclass on why Dems should go on Fox News." CALL TO ACTIVISM tweeted, “Holy moly. Pete Buttigieg is easily the best communicator Democrats have right now.”

Harris has until Aug. 7 to select her running mate, according to DNC Chair Jamie Harris. "In order to be on the ballot in all 50 states, we have to have all of this wrapped up by August 7. So, if the nominee so chooses...we will likely have our VP nominee also by August 7," he said on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on July 29.