President-elect Joe Biden struggled to recall the name of his “close friend,” whose husband he just picked to be a member of his Cabinet.
The incoming commander in chief announced that Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is his nominee for transportation secretary on Tuesday, and while he discussed their interactions as primary rivals during the campaign, Biden momentarily forgot the name of Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten.
“His husband is an educator, always, always, a mark of good character, is the way I look at it,” Biden began, referring to Buttigieg’s husband Chasten. “By the way, Jill and I have always enjoyed seeing Pete and Kirsten — Chasten, I should say — together on the trail. Chasten has become a close friend of Jill’s and mine.”
After dropping out of the Democratic primaries, Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also a failed presidential candidate, jointly endorsed Biden for president in a bid to boost the more centrist Democrat toward winning the presidential nomination against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist.
Biden, 78, claimed Buttigieg would be part of a “Cabinet of firsts” by being the “first ever openly gay nominee to lead a Cabinet department,” an assertion with which Republicans have taken issue.
In early 2020, President Trump named Richard Grenell, an openly gay man, as acting director of national intelligence, a Cabinet-level position.
Grenell was confirmed by the Senate to be U.S. ambassador to Germany, a role he held from May 2018 to June. He remains Trump’s special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations. During his time as Trump’s acting spy chief, Grenell engaged in an effort to review how U.S. intelligence agencies can help advance the Trump administration’s goal of decriminalizing homosexuality worldwide.
Should Buttigieg be confirmed as transportation secretary, he would be the first openly gay Cabinet-level nominee to be confirmed by the Senate but not the first openly gay person to hold a Cabinet-level position.
Buttigieg said during the announcement of his nomination that he proposed to his husband Chasten at an airport. “Travel in my mind is synonymous with growth, adventure, even love, so much so that I proposed to my husband, Chasten, in an airport terminal,” Buttigieg said. “Don’t let anybody tell you that O’Hare isn’t romantic.”
