Democrats rarely go on Fox News, even now that it appears they’re de-Trumping the joint. But when they do, they’re usually met with a lot of resistance. On Sunday, Pete Buttigieg showed how it’s done. When the presidential candidate-turned-secretary of transportation was asked about the people who recently protested outside a Morton’s steakhouse while Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh was dining, he was no wet blanket.
Buttigieg in response to Fox News asking about the appropriateness of his husband’s tweet abt Kavanaugh being protested at dinner: “Any public figure should be free from violence, intimidation & harassment, but should never be free from criticism or ppl exercising their 1a right” pic.twitter.com/KJk4XGmNla
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 10, 2022
Host Mike Emmanuel brought up a tweet from his husband, Chasten, who joked, “Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions.” That outraged the host, who asked Buttigieg if it was “appropriate” for protests to crop up while lawmakers seek some privacy. But Buttigieg didn’t hold back.
“Look, when public officials go into public life, we should expect two things. One, that you should always be free from violence, harassment, and intimidation. And two, you’re never going to be free from criticism or peaceful protests — people exercising their First Amendment rights. And that’s what happened in this case,” Buttigieg said. He also pointed out that Kavanaugh “never came into contact” with the protesters, and slipped out the back door.
Emmanuel repeatedly tried to interrupt him, but he soldiered on. “These protesters are upset because a right — a very important right, that the majority of Americans support — was taken away,” he continued:
“Not only the right to choose by the way, but this justice was part of the process of stripping away the right to privacy. Since I’ve been alive, settled case law in the United States has been that the Constitution protected the right to privacy and that has now been thrown out the window by justices, including Justice Kavanaugh, who as I recall, swore up and down in front of God and everyone including the United States Congress that they were going to leave settled case law alone. So yes, people are upset. They’re going to exercise their First Amendment rights.”
Buttigieg then moved on to an example of non-peaceful protest. “Compare that, for example, to the reality that as a country right now we are reckoning with the fact that a mob summoned by the former president to the United States Capitol for the purpose of overthrowing the election and very nearly succeeded in preventing the peaceful transfer of power,” he said. “I think common sense can tell the difference.”
Kavanaugh is one of four judges who, during their confirmation hearings and elsewhere, vowed to not touch “settled laws” such as Roe v. Wade. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among the Democrats who have called on impeachment trials for perjury for doing the opposite. Conservatives have since been trying, badly, to soften the ruling, perhaps realizing how unpopular it is.
Meanwhile, kudos for Buttigieg for going on the network that has falsely smeared him and giving them what-fer.
(Via Raw Story)