Pete Buttigieg predicted Trump would falsely claim election victory – and told us exactly how to deal with him
Pete Buttigieg (Late Late Show with James Corden/YouTube)
Pete Buttigieg has said we will “have to find a way to get through this” if Donald Trump is re-elected president of the United States.
The US election result is currently too close to call, with results from a number of swing states potentially being delayed until later in the week due to the volume of mail-in ballots.
Speaking on Election Day (November 3) on The Late Late Show with James Corden, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana spoke about what was then just speculation that Trump would declare an early victory and claim that Democrats were trying to steal the election through fraud.
Those predictions came true on Wednesday morning (November 4) when Trump falsely insisted he had been victorious while counting was ongoing, and threatened to take a legal challenge to the Supreme Court.
Trump has not won the election, and the result will not be known until all votes are counted, as is the proper democratic process.
Speaking about Trump’s tactics, Buttigieg said the United States “is democratic”, and reminded people that the vote “isn’t up to the president, it’s up to us”.
“He can say whatever he likes, but we’ve got to make sure that all those votes get in, that all those votes are counted, and especially when you think about troops serving overseas who’ve had to mail in their ballots, people who voted early, every eligible voter deserves to be counted.”
Buttigieg went on to praise elections workers counting votes, saying they will “make sure that those votes get counted”.
“The president, as he always does, is going to make a lot of noise, but he can’t drown out the simple reality of the Americans who are coming out to vote,” he added.
Buttigieg also delivered a message of hope in the case of a Trump victory.
When asked by Corden if the American people will be “OK” if the vote does not go in Joe Biden’s favour, Buttigieg said: “Yes, we will. We have to.”
He continued: “We have to find a way to get through this. This is a country that has been through pandemics, it’s been through wars, at one point half the country broke off and declared war against the first half, and this country still stands.
“And so we have got to find a way through this, and I believe that starts with electing new leadership, but this is about more than any one election, this is about more than politics.”
Pete Buttigieg thinks America could become ‘a full-scale, large, multi-racial, pluralistic democracy’ in the future.
Pete Buttigieg continued: “I actually think we could live to see something incredible in this country. We’re just couple of decades away from being a country that has no racial majority, a country that by mid-century could have solved some of the toughest problems around racial and economic justice, around climate, could be a full-scale, large, multi-racial, pluralistic democracy with a place for everybody where everybody can belong.
“We’re the generation that could see that happen. Now, we’re also the generation that could blow it, that’s part of why this election is so high stakes, but if we get it right in the next few years, the 2020s could go down in history as the time when America stood up and turned in a better direction, and by the middle of this century could be delivering to humanity something as important as the founding of America itself.
“I really believe that, if we do the work. And that’s why we’re doing the work.”
LGBT+ candidates have made significant gains in the election.
While most of the world’s attention remains on the presidential election, there have been significant gains for LGBT+ candidates in other quarters.
Sarah McBride became the first transgender state senator elected anywhere in the United States, while both Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres triumphed in New York where they became the first Black and Afro-Latino members of Congress who identify as LGBT+.
Elsewhere, Mauree Turner became the first openly non-binary person elected to a state legislature anywhere in the United States, while Torey Harris and Eddie Mannis became the first openly LGBT+ lawmakers in Tennessee.
There were also high-profile victories for trans lawmaker Brianna Titone and trans Native American teacher Stephanie Byers, while Shevrin Jones and Michele Rayner-Goolsby were elected in Florida.
