Pete Buttigieg hits back at JD Vance over past ‘childless’ comment

Talking about his and husband Chasten’s “heart-breaking” adoption setback, US transportation secretary and gay dad Pete Buttigieg has hit back at JD Vance over a past “childless” comment aimed at Democrats. 

Buttigieg, who made history when he became the first openly gay US cabinet secretary in 2021, responded to the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s previous comments, live on CNN. During the interview, the Democrat was asked about Vance name-dropping him as one of the those in government who didn’t have children. 

Buttigieg adopted twins Joseph August and Penelope Rose with Chasten in 2021, before Vance gave the interview. The couple only found out they were having twins 24 hours before their surrogate gave birth.

The Democrat, who earlier this month took aim at Vance, responded to the comments which he said came after he and Chasten had “been through a fairly heart-breaking setback in our adoption journey”. 

Mayor Pete, as he is fondly called in a nod to his days as mayor of South Bend, in Indiana, continued: “He couldn’t have known that. Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.

“It’s not about his kids, or my kids, or the vice-president’s family, it’s about your family: people’s families whose wellbeing will depend on whether we go into a future led by somebody like Kamala Harris, who is focused on expanding the prosperity, the freedom, the wellbeing of our families.” 

Vice-president Harris is stepmother to husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Cole and Ella.

Buttigieg added that Americans now have an important decision to make, especially for families, between choosing a party that has a plan on climate change, and creates jobs, or one that still calls it a hoax.

In 2019, Trump was criticised after he called climate change a “hoax” supposedly invented by China.

Earlier this year, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert was criticised for making a homophobic jibe about “chest-feeding” directed at Buttigieg. Her comment followed him calling her out for taking credit for a project she hadn’t supported.