Pete Buttigieg begged Democrats to consider the repercussions of choosing Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, to become the party’s 2020 presidential nominee.
“In our one shot to defeat Donald Trump, we should think carefully about the consequences of nominating Sen. Sanders. I don’t want, as a Democrat, I don’t want to be explaining why our nominee is encouraging people to look on the bright side of the Castro regime,” Buttigieg said during a Monday CNN town hall in South Carolina ahead of the state’s Feb. 29 primary.
“Why are we spotlighting the literacy programs of a brutal dictator?” the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, repeated when asked if there were any shades of gray.
“Why are we spotlighting the literacy programs of a brutal dictator, instead of being unambiguous in our condemnation about the way he has treated his own people?” – Pete Buttigieg on Sanders’ praise for Fidel Castro’s efforts to spread literacy in Cuba https://t.co/RzKoh314Xm pic.twitter.com/glipCCdRmo
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 25, 2020
The Vermont senator, 78, drew consternation from both Democrats and Republicans after he praised late Cuban strongman Fidel Castro during a 60 Minutes interview over the weekend for Castro’s literacy program, introduced after the leader seized power in the communist country in 1959. Sanders stood by his comments in an earlier town hall, saying, “Teaching people to read and write is a good thing.”
On Monday, Buttigieg, 38, declined to drop out of the Democratic race for the White House, although the crowded center-left lane has split the vote, allowing Sanders to collect the most delegates so far.
“I’m the best alternative to Sen. Sanders because I’m the only one who’s beat him this year, anywhere,” Buttigieg said, referring to his slim victory over the senator in Iowa.
Buttigieg’s candidacy, however, faces a major test in South Carolina. He’s been plagued by struggles to connect with minority Democrats who comprise an influential part of the primary electorate, as well as a winning coalition for Democrats in a general election. He told the audience he “recognizes” and is “humbled” by how he has to earn the trust of black Democrats in the “first in the South” state before they go to the polls on Saturday.
While the former mayor stood by his belief in the conservative state that religious nonprofit institutions, such as colleges and homeless charities, should lose their federal funding if they refuse to hire or serve gay people, he also reflected on how his sexual orientation as a gay married man has affected his White House bid.
“If there was a pill I could take and not be gay anymore, I would have jumped on it,” he told the crowd, before saying he wasn’t running “to be the gay president of the United States or the president of the gay United States.”
Buttigieg added: “How about God having a sense of humor? That this was one of the things that’s actually helping me make a difference before we even know the outcome of the campaign.”
