Mike Pence Defends Previous Poke at Pete Buttigieg, Preempting 2024 Pundits

With each passing day, it seems like former Vice President Mike Pence is acting a little more presidential.

Political speculators have suggested that Pence is looking to take a run for the White House in 2024 – something that he certainly not denied.  In fact, his recent jabs at his former boss’s allegedly phony faith show us that Mike Pence means business.

Now, in what could be rather clever bit of preemptive politicking, Pence is readdressing a previous comment that he made at the expense of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that could have come back to haunt him in the general election.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is defending a joke he told recently about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during an exclusive dinner and roast attended by politicians and journalists, which was later criticized by the White House and by Buttigieg’s husband.

“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” Pence said Saturday at the Gridiron Dinner, an annual invitation only white tie gathering in the nation’s capital where the invited speakers humorously make fun of themselves and others.

Pence, who has said he will decide in the spring on whether he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, was commenting on the family leave Buttigieg took after he and his husband Chasten adopted newborn twins in 2021.

Pence’s defense was rooted in the First Amendment.

“The Gridiron Dinner is a roast. I had a lot of jokes directed to me, and I directed a lot of jokes to Republicans and Democrats,” Pence told reporters Thursday evening after headlining a Republican Party fundraising dinner in New Hampshire, the state that holds the second contest in the GOP’s presidential nominating calendar.

Pence did get a good parting shot in.

“The only thing I can figure is Pete Buttigieg not only can’t do his job, but he can’t take a joke,” he added.