White House Slams Pence for Joke About Buttigieg

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

(ConservativeHub.com) – On March 13, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called for Vice President Mike Pence to issue an apology over the joke he made about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg taking time off following the adoption of his children.

During the annual Gridiron dinner for journalists on Saturday in Washington, Pence joked that Buttigieg had taken a “maternity leave” and that following his absence everyone else had gotten “postpartum depression.”

Jean-Pierre called Pence out for making a “punchline” over postpartum depression and criticized Pence’s comments for being homophobic. She added that the comments that Pence had made were “offensive and inappropriate” and that for that reason he should apologize to both women and LGBTQ people who should be “treated with dignity and respect.”

In his, joke Pence pointed out that while Buttigieg had been on leave, the air traffic system halted, while many travelers got stranded at airports and airplanes experienced near-collisions on runways. He proceeded to say that Buttigieg had been the only person in the world to have had a child and yet everyone else got postpartum depression.

In response to the White House’s criticism, Pence refused to apologize. According to WMUR, he claimed he’s been on the receiving end of jokes before and he’s joked about other GOP members and Democrats. He claimed Buttigieg simply couldn’t take a joke.

In September 2021, Buttigieg announced that he and his husband had welcomed twins into their family. In October, the twins had been hospitalized following a respiratory virus infection.

During that time, Buttigieg had worked from the hospital. However, some conservatives had claimed that he needed to be working harder.

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