Pete Buttigieg continued his run as the breakout star of the US election, delivering an expert tear-down of Donald Trump’s handling of the economy on Fox News.
In recent weeks the former presidential hopeful has been a welcome counterpoint to the obsequious Fox News coverage, fuelling viral views as his dry sarcasm and calm, coherent dissection of Republican strategy prove surprisingly popular among the typically right-wing audience.
He continued his campaign right up until the eleventh hour, weighing in on Trump’s “economic disaster” in a heated interview on Monday (November 2).
“If there’s one thing Donald Trump is very good at it’s taking credit for what others have done in the economy,” Buttigieg said.
“He inherited the Obama-Biden expansion, slowed it down, but the economy continued expanding until his disastrous handling of the pandemic ran it into the ditch it’s now in, where we still have something in the order of 20 million Americans out of work.”
Pete Buttigieg destroys Trump official on Fox News.
Trump’s director of communications Tim Murtaugh took issue with Pete Buttigieg’s comments. He hit back with the claim that the Biden economy was “stagnant” when Trump inherited it, and that Buttigieg had no idea what he was talking about.
When asked to respond, “Slayer Pete” gladly proved, as usual, that he actually knew exactly what he was talking about.
“I guess [Murtaugh] thinks we’re all stupid,” he began with a smile. “We can look this up, these are matters of simple fact:of GDP growth under Obama faster than under Trump. Look at the first three years.
“And if he’s trying to sell us on third quarter GDP growth this year, if he’s trying to use the 2020 economy as an example of an economic triumph, he’s living on a different planet than the rest of us,” he told news anchor Martha MacCallum.
“The only reason those numbers are what they are is because it’s a partial comeback from the bloodbath that was the second quarter. We’re still down, as I think anybody knows.”
MacCallum suggested that the current state of the economy was purely due to the pandemic, and any president would’ve experienced that economic dive – except for the fact, as Pete Buttigieg pointed out, that other countries haven’t experienced quite the same issues as America.
“We have the most diverse country in the entire world and with a set of complex problems in our population, it’s a completely different environment,” MacCallum replied as a bemused look flickered over Buttigieg’s face.
“So we should settle for less? We should settle for worse numbers?” he quickly shot back.
You can watch the full takedown below.