Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg commented on former President Trump’s decision to select Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate for 2024, comparing him to former Vice President Mike Pence.
“Maybe not as a politician, but as a human being, I can say that I hope things go a little better for J.D. Vance than I do for Mike Pence,” he said on “Real Time with Bill Maher” Friday night.
Buttigieg, who served as mayor of South Bend while Pence was governor of Indiana, pointed to Pence’s strong evangelical values and said he had watched Pence sacrifice his own values to gain a position in the Trump administration.
Trump formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night. Buttigieg, who briefly ran against President Biden in 2020, warned that Vance’s joining Trump’s ticket as vice presidential candidate was a power grab, repeating history.
“When I went to Harvard, I knew a lot of people like him,” Buttigieg said of Vance. “There were a lot of people like him who would say whatever it took to get ahead. Five years ago, that looked like anti-Trump Republicans.”
Vance was a fierce critic of Trump during his first presidential campaign in 2016, calling him a “cultural heroin” in an Atlantic magazine article and reportedly likening him to Hitler in private communications.
Since then, the Ohio Republican has transformed himself into a Trump supporter as he was elected to the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, his first foray into public office.
During his time in office, he has vigorously defended the former president’s policy positions, including cutting aid to Ukraine during its war with Russia and engaging in election denialism.
Vance, 39, is expected to be President Trump’s political successor in the Republican Party, as the former president pointed out in his closing speech at the Republican National Convention.
“JD, you’re going to be doing this for a long time. Have fun,” Trump said.
Buttigieg warned that Vance’s alignment with Trump on the issue could be politically disastrous, noting that Pence’s political career was capped by the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump has repeatedly urged Pence to challenge Biden’s election victory, but the former Indiana governor has resisted, arguing he does not have the constitutional authority to make such a decision.
“It ended with Trump supporters on the West Front of the Capitol suggesting he should be hanged for using the only integrity they had left to resist an attempt to overthrow the government,” Buttigieg said Friday.
