Column: The unflappable Pete Buttigieg is (still) the Democrats' best political communicator (2024)

Slayer Pete is back!

In 2020, Mayor Pete Buttigieg became such a savage critic of then-President Trump‘s reelection campaign that I wrote a column with the headline “Make way for Slayer Pete. Buttigieg is the Biden’s campaign’s secret weapon.” The nickname caught on and eventually made its way to merchandise.

Someone needs to resurrect those Slayer Pete coffee mugs right about now, because if you substitute “Harris” for “Biden,” that column still stands.

As Vice President Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign, now-Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg, appearing on various news and talk shows as a private individual, almost instantly began proving once again that beneath his polite tone and mild-mannered mien lurks the heart of a political ninja warrior.

Everywhere you look, there’s Slayer Pete eviscerating the Trump campaign in no uncertain terms. On Sunday morning, he pushed back against Fox News anchor Shannon Bream’s attempt to soften the impact of Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices’ decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. “Trump demolished the right to choose in this country. Period.”

Overturning Roe was one of the few campaign promises Trump kept during his administration, Buttigieg said — the ultimate backhanded compliment.

“He broke his promise for that kind of economic growth. He broke his promise to pass an infrastructure bill, right?” Buttigieg continued. “He said he would do that. He failed to do it. The Biden-Harris administration got it done. [Trump] even broke his promise to that Jan. 6 mob when he said, ‘I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol.’” But, Buttigieg added, “He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country. And he kept his promise on tax cuts for the rich. And if you want to know what a second Trump term would be like, I would start by looking at those rare promises that he actually managed to keep.”

When Bream pushed Buttigieg on the issue of Biden’s age and ability, he deftly turned the tables: “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 ... we don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side.”

The game, set, match interview almost immediately went viral on every media platform in existence — nothing impresses TikTok users like “ultimate burn” energy, and Buttigieg did it without breaking a sweat, or even raising his voice.

On CNN, he called Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance “a regrettable choice because [Vance] is somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Donald Trump is, and he has not explained any reason, other than of course his obvious interest in power, why he would have changed his mind on that.”

When, on HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher asked Buttigieg, a gay man, why he thought PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, another gay man, was pouring money into the Trump campaign, Buttigieg refused to take the identity politics bait.

“I know there are a lot of folks who say, ‘What’s going on with some of these Silicon Valley folks veering into Trump world with J.D. Vance and backing Trump?” he responded. “‘Silicon Valley... they’re supposed to care about climate. They’re supposed to be pro-science and rational and libertarians. So, normally, libertarians don’t like the authoritarians. What’s up with that?’

“We’ve made it way too complicated,” Buttigieg continued. “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.”

Stating the obvious never sounded so refreshingly brutal.

Buttigieg, who has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick for Harris, is not the only Democrat surfing the wave of renewed energy in the party since Biden announced his departure from the race and endorsed Harris a little more than a week ago. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has been equally passionate in his support of Harris and his attacks on Trump, has also repeatedly gone viral, particularly for embracing the Democrats’ latest characterization of the Trump campaign. “These guys are just weird,” he said on MSNBC, doubling down a few days later at a St. Paul rally by saying “the fascists depend on fear… but we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little creeped out, but we’re not afraid.”

Other potential vice presidential picks including Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have also gone on the offensive, something Buttigieg himself pointed out, rejoicing in how the number of new voices underlines the strength of the Democratic back bench.

But none have the lacerating force of Buttigieg’s relentlessly unflappable delivery. Even when describing the personal pain he felt when Vance, during his 2021 Senate campaign, condemned Democrats, including Buttigieg and Harris, for being “childless” (despite Harris having two stepchildren), Buttigieg remained lethally calm.

“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Buttigieg said in an interview with CNN. “He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”

With his nice-white-guy face and good-humored stage presence, Buttigieg remains a master of camouflage even now, the Zen master who can disarm an opponent in a single “did you see that?” move. He is so good on Fox that it’s difficult to imagine why they keep asking him to come on — no matter how often the various anchors and hosts have seen it happen, those expecting him to reveal a weak spot remain surprised when they find themselves flattened instead.

A Rhodes scholar and a veteran, Buttigieg became the mayor of South Bend, Ind., in 2012. During his tenure as mayor, he came out and married Chasten Glazeman; they adopted newborn fraternal twins in 2021. In 2020, Buttigieg ran for president, and as the first out gay Democratic candidate for the office, he faced down the predictable welter of hom*ophobic attacks with a dismissive ease that underlined the hateful absurdity of such things.

When it became clear he could not win the nomination, he became the ultimate team player, offering up his formidable skills in support of his former opponents — Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

That October, Fox News’ Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked Buttigieg a leading question about the policy differences between Biden and Harris, only to have Buttigieg feint, brilliantly.

“Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates,” Buttigieg said. “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 the president caught with a p*rn star, or how he feels about the immigration policy that he called ‘unconstitutional’ before he decided to team up with Donald Trump.”

The answer went viral and a star was born. While others ranted and raved, Buttigieg always remained calm, happy to go on Fox or any other platform with an arsenal of facts at the ready.

Which is precisely how he continues to show his support for Harris now. In the Sunday interview with Bream, he once again set the record straight as coolly, and cleverly, as ever: “People think that crime is up when crime is down under Joe Biden and was up under Trump. 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.”

Whether he winds up on the Democratic ticket or not, Buttigieg remains one of the party’s most effective communicators — the MVP of viral politicking.

Welcome back, Slayer Pete.