During the Sunday edition of ABC’s This Week program, co-host and ABC's chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz quickly turned from addressing a few serious topics to a big softball question that South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg might consider his run for the presidency a “sexy challenge.”
The question was especially interesting since the guest is openly gay and married to his husband Chasten.
Raddatz began the interview by discussing such serious issues as the troubling situation with Iran (such as this tough exchange that Mediaite's Caleb Howe flagged down), ongoing military negotiations with North Korea and President Trump’s suggestion about pardoning former soldiers who have engaged in violent behavior since they came home.
However, the reporter also turned to “an old local news story” in which Buttigieg outlined his political ambitions and his desire to enter national politics back when he was 18 years old.
In that article, Buttigieg stated: “I think I can pull it off. It’s a tremendous challenge, a kind of sexy challenge, but I want to give it a try.”
“It seems like you knew you were going to do this your whole life,” Raddatz noted. “Has it been ‘a sexy challenge'?”
The liberal guest replied: “Well, in a way. If you’re a curious person, there’s nothing like it.”
He also stated:
I was always interested in public service. What I would not have guessed at the age of 18 was how much I find purpose and meaning in local work. For a while, I thought I was going to be a journalist. For a while, I thought I was going to be a scholar. I always felt drawn in some way [to public service].
That challenge, the mayor continued, “is about an engaging thing I could think to do with my life.”
“And while this may not be a career for me,” Buttigieg continued, “it’s certainly something that has been extremely exciting for as long as I’ve been involved in it, and most importantly, I think I can make myself useful.”
Yikes. At least Raddatz wasn't like her collueage Terry Moran in 2008 when he suggested Obama was stepping down into the presidency.
Back in the present, Buttigieg later tried to clarify his views on public life.
“It’s not like I thought that, at the age of 37, as a mayor, I would be seeking the American presidency,” he noted. “But what I found is that moments will sometimes find you a little bit.”
Buttigieg also stated that “[t]here’s a new generation of leaders stepping up from France to New Zealand,” adding that having younger leaders is a “trend America should be leading, not catching up to.”
