Pete Buttigieg Is A Much Better Fox News Troll Than We Would Have Expected

On the presidential campaign trail, former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg was not known for his quick wit or incisive takedowns. Instead, he was known for saying lots of words that didn’t actually mean anything, ultimately earning him the nickname “Mayo Pete.” So it might be surprising that in his post-presidential candidacy, Mayor Pete has rebranded himself as a bit of a Fox News troll — and a rather good one at that.

Before the Vice Presidential debate on Wednesday, Buttigieg went on Fox News and was asked to justify Harris’ changing positions on policy items like Medicare For All. Instead, he flipped the script, pointing out who Vice President Mike Pence would then have to answer for the fact that his stances differ from Trump's.

“Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates and if people want to play that game, we could look into why an Evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with a president caught with a porn star,” Buttigieg said, referencing Stormy Daniels’ affair with Trump, “or how he feels about the immigration policy that he called ‘unconstitutional’ before he decided to team up with Donald Trump.” Aside from grossly attempting to use Daniels as a punchline here, Buttigieg's point swiftly undercut co-hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier who were both too quiet to know what to say next.

The following day, Buttigieg did it again when he appeared on the network to talk about President Trump’s refusal to agree to a virtual debate. Virtual events and meetings are “not something most of us enjoy, but it’s a safety measure,” Buttigieg answered. “Every time there has been a choice between doing something in a way that’s more safe or less safe, this president seems to push for less safe.”

“I think it’s also probably a reflection of the weakness of his campaign, you know when you see campaigns getting the kind of bad news that he’s been getting through this month, a lot of time you’ll see these kind of increased arguments over rules, withdrawing from opportunities, a little bit of flailing there,” Buttigieg fired off.

But wait, there's more: “Of course, the only reason we’re here in the first place is that the President of the United States is still contagious, as far as we know, with a deadly disease, which reflects the overall problem and I don’t know why you would want to be in a room with other people if you were contagious with a deadly disease and you care about other people,” Buttigieg said, before adding, “But maybe the president doesn’t care about other people.”   

This is quite the departure for Mayor Pete, who was often characterized as a Democrat whose policies hewed closer to Republican, seemingly making him a good fit for Fox News’ typical audience. And perhaps that's why he was asked to join their segment, though no one — especially not the Fox News hosts — was prepared for this expert level trolling. We certainly didn't know he had it in him, but we love to see it!