Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., and presidential hopeful, was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday night whether Vice President Mike Pence would make a better president than Donald Trump.
The look on his face pretty much answered the question, but Buttigieg did put some words behind his expression: “Does it have to be between those two?”
When Tapper countered by saying politics is all about choices, Buttigieg, after a pause, proceeded to unload on the former governor of Indiana:
‘How could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn-star presidency?’
Buttigieg said that while he’s always disagreed “ferociously” with Pence on the key issues, he also thought the vice president always believed in “our institutions” and wasn’t “personally corrupt.”
Buttigieg wondered when it changed, and how “the cheerleader of the porn-star presidency” could possibly get on the same page as the current administration.
“Is it that he stopped believing in Scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump? I don’t know,” he said, adding that Pence’s “interpretation of Scripture is pretty different than mine to begin with.”
Buttigieg said his understanding of Scripture is about “protecting the stranger and the prisoner and the poor person.” Pence, he said, doesn’t see it that way.
“That’s what I get in the Gospel when I’m in church. And his has a lot more to do with sexuality and a certain view of rectitude,” said Buttigieg, who’d be the first openly gay Democratic candidate if he formally launches a White House bid.
Watch the clip:
Mayor Pete Buttigieg on @VP: "How could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency? Is it that he stopped believing in scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump?" https://t.co/0w8SGn2Fw9 #CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/7F6pvSfNOF
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) March 11, 2019
