Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been remarkably tight-lipped about whether he’s in the running to be Kamala Harris’ vice presidential candidate — and he continued to be coy about his chances in his latest appearance on “The Daily Show.”
“All I should say about it is that, you know, she is gonna make this decision,” Buttigieg told host Jon Stewart in an episode that aired on Monday night. “She’s got a process to help her make the decision.”
“Oh my god, you’re being vetted. Everything you say, even that, is being vetted,” Stewart said.
“Probably,” Buttigieg said before chuckling.
Buttigieg’s response is notable for how he didn’t rule himself out as a potential running mate.
Representatives for the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, made waves in 2020 for his presidential campaign. He started out strong and won Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses.
Buttigieg, however, would drop out from the race just a month later when his campaign lost traction.
The Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar later endorsed President Joe Biden, who went on to win in 2020. Buttigieg later joined the Biden administration as transportation secretary.
Buttigieg’s name has been floated alongside other contenders, which include Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.
One of those candidates, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, said he was withdrawing himself from consideration on Monday night.
Picking Buttigieg as Harris’ running mate would place him in stark contrast with former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
Besides having ties to the Midwest, both men have served with the armed forces — Buttigieg with the US Navy Reserve and Vance with the Marine Corps.
But that’s as far as the similarities go. Vance has recently come under fire after his past remarks on childless individuals from a 2021 speech resurfaced.
“If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice,” Vance said in a speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference.
Buttigieg, who shares two children with his husband Chasten, slammed Vance’s remarks during his interview with Stewart.
“When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I didn’t have kids back then, but I will tell you, especially when there was a rocket attack going on, my commitment to this country felt pretty physical,” he said.
