According to a new book, “Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency,” by the Hill’s Amie Parnes and NBC’s Jonathan Allen, former president Barack Obama made some pretty disparaging comments about democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who he said was “too short” and “gay” to be president. Nothing like identity politics and stereotyping from the left. That’s what the Democratic Party was built on.
During an October 2019 meeting with elite black donors in New York, the race for the Democratic nomination had been narrowed to four candidates: Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Sanders. Allen describes a scene in which Obama did not offer his support for Biden or Buttigieg and instead chose to highlight his support for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. One donor recalled the meeting being a “90 percent Warren sermon.”
According to sources, Obama offered to take a few questions from the audience including Ken Chenault, the former chairman of American Express, tech executive Charles Phillips, Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, Citigroup’s Ray McGuire, as well as actor Robert de Niro. He was asked about support for South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s bid for the presidency, in which he ridiculed Buttigieg in front of an entire audience.
Obama said he liked Buttigieg, who was a “rising talent” on his own campaign but had issues with the candidate’s age, sexual orientation, and height. He recalled Buttigieg having “big ears” and a “funny name.” Obama was also riffing on him to some of the wealthiest Black men in America about being dubbed ‘Mayo Pete’ by critics who believed he couldn’t connect with African American voters.
“He’s thirty-eight, but he looks thirty. He’s the mayor of a small town. He’s gay, and he’s short,” Obama said, according to the excerpt.
Buttigieg had reportedly met with Obama months before the meeting where he wanted to seek advice on how to maintain equanimity in the face of homophobia on the campaign trail. Obama also acknowledged during the meeting that he knew Kamala Harris but offering no further commentary. But when Obama was wrapping up, an executive said “you forgot Biden” in which he seemed apprehensive to respond. A source in the room said his support for Biden was “tepid at best,” but that it didn’t matter what he said about Biden. His silence spoke for him.
Biden appointed Buttigieg to his office of Secretary of Transportation earlier this year and continues to work and expand upon Obama’s policies. In the last page of the $1.9 trillion economic recovery plan, Biden tucked a 150% Obamacare expansion that would fully subsidize the Affordable Care Act for people who earn up to 150% of the federal poverty level, as well as incorporate people making more than 400% of the federal poverty level.
If it weren’t for the double standards, Democrats would have no standards at all.
