Pete Buttigieg blasts JD Vance’s VP candidacy in one brutal joke

Out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg criticized Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), saying that Vance went from boldly criticizing his running mate, former President Donald Trump, to becoming someone who will “say whatever they needed to to get ahead.” Buttigieg also noted that Trump’s followers ended up wanting to kill former Vice President Mike Pence, making a dark comparing between Vance and Pence.

Buttigieg made his comments while speaking to comedian and political commentator Bill Maher on his show Real Time. During their discussion, Buttigieg explained why wealthy Silicon Valley tech executives—like transphobic billionaire Elon Musk, gay billionaire Peter Thiel, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg—have increasingly aligned behind Republican candidates.

Related:

Pete Buttigieg & other LGBTQ+ politicians coalesce in support of Kamala Harris

“I will do all that I can to help elect Kamala Harris,” Buttigieg said.

Maher noted that Thiel backed Vance even though Vance opposes same-sex marriage.

Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024

Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

“What are they thinking?” Buttigieg said. “Silicon Valley, they’re supposed to care about climate. They’re supposed to be, you know, be pro-science and rational and libertarian. So normally libertarians don’t like authoritarians. What’s up with that?”

He continued, “I think it’s actually we’ve made it way too complicated. It’s super simple: These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican Party that tends to do good things for very rich men.”

“That’s kind of what you’re getting with J.D.,” Buttigieg continued. “When I got to Harvard, I found a lot of people like him who would say whatever they needed to to get ahead. And five years ago, that seemed like being the anti-Trump Republican. So that’s what he was talking about. How he [Trump] was unfit.”

Indeed, in 2016, Vance said he would rather vote for his dog or a Democrat than for Trump. He also then referred to Trump as a “total fraud,” a “moral disaster,” “reprehensible,” an “idiot,” “cultural heroin,” “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” “a cynical as**ole” and “America’s Hitler.” Vance later said he began supporting Trump after seeing the results of Trump’s first term.

Buttigieg noted that Vance’s “heroin” comment referred to Trump as an opioid, which is notable since Appalachia, the geographic area near Vance’s hometown that Vance has made central to his public persona, has an opioid crisis. “That really is the darkest thing you could possibly say about Donald Trump, at least in public,” Buttigieg said, noting that in 2016 being a “never-Trumper” was a way to gain notoriety and influence among Republicans.

“Five years later, the way [Vance] gets ahead is that [Trump’s] the greatest guy since sliced bread,” Buttigieg said. Trump endorsed Vance during the crowd Republican primary in 2022 before Vance was eventually elected to the Senate. Vance has since become one of Trump’s most vocal supporters. This transformation reminded Buttigieg of Trump’s last vice president.

“I actually watched this exact same process with somebody else I got to know in my days in the Midwest, which was, my former governor, Mike Pence, who I watched start out as an evangelical Christian who cared about rectitude and family values and then get on board with a guy who was mixed up with a porn star, make excuses for him so that he could have power,” Buttigieg told Maher.

“He got four glorious years, I guess, as vice president of the United States,” Buttigieg continued. “And it ended on the west front of the Capitol with Trump supporters proposing that he be hanged for using the one shred of integrity he still had to stand up to an attempt to overthrow the government.”

Buttigieg was referring to Pence’s refusal to de-certify the Electoral College’s final vote declaring now-President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Trump told Pence to refuse to certify the results in the Senate, an unprecedented move that would have disrupted the peaceful transfer of power that has been a trademark of American democracy for over 200 years.

Pence’s refusal angered Trump and his followers, so much so that when Trump’s followers rioted at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, they set up a mock gallows with a noose and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” Pence has since said that he will not endorse Trump for re-election.

Then Buttigieg made a rather dark comparison.

“So I guess, maybe not as a politician, but as a human being, what I’ll say is that I hope things work out a little bit better for J.D. Vance than it did for him,” Buttigieg said.

As lesbian MSNBC news anchorwoman Rachel Maddow noted last week, Vance has supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election. As such, Vance seems quite willing to do what Pence wouldn’t.

Don't forget to share: