Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has enlarged his own profile by fulfilling his role as one of the top media surrogates for the Biden-Harris administration.
A military veteran and former presidential candidate, Buttigieg’s clear speaking style makes him a versatile tool in the Democratic belt — a hammer in the less friendly environs of right-wing media or a socket wrench tightening received opinion on left-leaning Dem-friendly platforms.
Appearing on Fox News, Buttigieg hammered home some facts while savaging the network for what he characterized as its misrepresentations to its audience, notably for burying coverage of violent crime statistics under Donald Trump that didn’t fit into its conservative-leaning narrative.
“I often wonder whether viewers of this network are aware that violent crime went up under Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said on air. “I think that deserves more coverage so we can ask ourselves why.”
.@PeteButtigieg to Fox: Violent crime went up under Donald Trump. An unrepentant convicted criminal is running against a prosecutor. We have an opportunity to send a message about whether we are serious about law and order in this country by voting for Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/ibkDBhIss5
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 20, 2024
Buttigieg says some of the answer to “why” has to do with policy, but the other critical aspect is the “message — when you have Donald Trump, an unrepentant convicted criminal, running against a prosecutor like Kamala Harris, we have an opportunity to say whether we’re serious about law and order in this country…or whether it’s just something people use as a political theme for partisan gain.”
The Democrats are consistently positioning the reworked election matchup — Trump vs. Harris — as Convict vs. Prosecutor, while the GOP’s general response is to claim its party has a greater affinity with “law and order” and “backing the blue” — asserting that the country is safer with Republicans in the top spot.
Buttigieg suspects that any routine Fox News viewer would take those assertions as true — believing that the GOP stands for law and order and is tougher on crime — even though the evidence tells a different story.
Note: According to PolitiFact, the number of murders in the United States rose by 5,795 from 2019 to 2020, “the largest one-year increase since such data began being systematically recorded in the early 1960s.”