6 times Pete Buttigieg DESTROYED Republicans with an epic clapback

Pete Buttigieg started his political career as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, before running in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary. He then went on to become the first openly gay cabinet secretary in U.S. history when President Joe Biden appointed him as secretary of transportation.

Not only is Mayor Pete making LGBTQ+ history in politics, but he's also proficient at reading Republicans for filth in the most respectable way possible. It's a real skill to be able to level a conservative's arguments and shut them down without raising your voice, losing your cool, or resorting to childish insults (cough *Trump* couch).

Buttigieg knows his facts, speaks clearly, and has no problem eviscerating Republicans and their ridiculous and harmful policies and opinions. And now he's using those skills to take down Trump's embarrassing running mate JD Vance. It's glorious to watch, and we can't get enough!

In defense of Tim Walz's military service

While speaking to reporters in Michigan on August 7, Trump's running mate, JD Vance, opened his fool mouth and went on a rant about Tim Walz's military record. "What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage," Vance said, claiming that Walz "has not spent a day in a combat zone."

According to a Newsweek fact-checking article, Walz spent 24 years in the military but never saw combat, but neither did Vance. The Republican Veep pick spent four years in the Marine Corps, serving as a combat correspondent in Iraq between August 2005 and February 2006, but he never saw combat. Pot meet kettle.

But Buttigieg, who served as a Navy intelligence officer in Afghanistan, wasn't going to let Vance's insults stand, managing to combine calling out Vance for insulting Walz's military service and Vance's terrible opinions about women who haven't had children!

"Come to think of it, denigrating the worth of a soldier's service based on whether he deployed to a war zone is… kind of like denigrating the worth of a woman's citizenship based on whether she happens to have children," he wrote on X yesterday.

Pete gives JD Vance a reality check

In July, Buttigieg stopped by Real Time with Bill Maher to talk about the current political landscape but also landed some brutal blows, insulting both gay PayPal CEO Peter Thiel and everyone's favorite couch enthusiast JD Vance.

When Maher asked him how a gay man like Thiel could support Vance when he doesn't believe in gay marriage, Buttigieg's response was simple and on point. "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," he said.

Then, Buttigieg accused Vance of saying "whatever they needed to get ahead" before warning him about the way Donald Trump treated his last vice president. Hint: it wasn't good!

"He got four glorious years, I guess, as Vice President of the United States. 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 said. "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 better for J.D. Vance than they did for Mike Pence."

Pete defends the Pride flag

Martha-Ann Alito — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's wife with potential ties to the January 6 insurrection — was secretly recorded at a dinner by documentarian Lauren Windsor, who posed as a sympathetic anti-abortion activist. "You know what I want? I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month," Martha-Ann Alito said at the dinner.

This comment might seem innocuous, but right-wing Christians use the Sacred Heart of Jesus flag to protest Pride flags. Get a life, people.

When asked about Martha-Ann Alito's homophobic rant when he was on CNN, Buttigieg talked about his husband, Chasten Buttigiege, and their two children. "That marriage only exists by the grace of a single vote on the United States Supreme Court that expanded our rights and freedoms back in 2015 and made it possible for somebody like me to get married," he said.

Then, Buttigieg read Martha-Ann Alito without using a single insult." I also hope that most Americans can understand the difference between a flag that symbolizes love and acceptance and signals to people who have sometimes feared for their safety that they're going to be okay and insurrectionist symbology," he said. "I'll just leave it at that."

Pete's quick with the jokes!

Back in 2022, during a House Transportation hearing, Republican Rep. Troy Nehls called President Joe Biden's mental fitness into question, claiming that he "falls off bicycles."

But Buttigieg wasn't going to let that insulting and leading question go. Instead, he quipped, "First of all, I'm glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle."His quick wit throws off the conservative congressman, who reacts by peppering Buttigieg with more ridiculous questions and not giving him a chance to speak. We love to watch them fail so spectacularly!

Claps back at homophobia

In 2023, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Buttigieg if he reimbursed the government for using a military aircraft to fly to Europe as the head of the American delegation to the Invictus Games—a competition for wounded soldiers and military veterans. Buttigieg answered, "Of course not," before laying out exactly why the question was homophobic.

"Before me, it was the secretary of the army under President Trump who took that trip with his wife. Before that, it was Mrs. Trump as first lady who went. Before that, Mrs. Obama did the same thing," Buttigieg said. "And I guess the question on my mind is, if no one's raising questions about why secretary [Mark] Esper and his wife led that delegation, as well they should have, then why is it any different when it's me and my husband?"

If he ever decides to give up his career in politics, Buttigieg could make a fortune teaching a master class on how to eviscerate homophobic arguments!

Trump's tweets are 'grotesque'

Back in 2019 when Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend and was running to be the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election, he did a live town hall in New Hampshire hosted by Chris Wallace for Fox News. Wallace asked Buttigieg how he would handle Trump's "insults and the attacks and the tweets," and his response was epic!

“The tweets are — I don’t care,” Buttigieg said to cheers from the audience, Politico reported. Then, Wallace said Trump's tweets were a "very effective way for him to reach tens of millions of Americans."

“It’s a very effective way to command the attention of the media,” Buttigieg shot back. “I think that we need to make sure that we’re changing the channel from this show that he’s created. ... And I get it, look — it’s mesmerizing and hard for anyone to look away. Me too. It is the nature of grotesque things that you can’t look away.”

Calling Trump's rage-filled, frequently xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ+ tweets "grotesque" is *chef's kiss*.