WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Thursday he would have no qualms voting for a gay presidential candidate – even though he’s unlikely to support the gay Democrat running to take his job this year, Pete Buttigieg.
“It doesn’t seem to be hurting Pete Buttigieg,” Trump told Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera during a radio interview in response to a question about whether U.S. voters would support a gay candidate for president.
“I think there would be some that wouldn’t – and I wouldn’t be among that group to be honest with you,” Trump said.
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Trump touched on a wide range of topics during the roughly 45-minute interview, including the 2020 election. He slammed former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is facing criticism for embracing a “stop-and-frisk” policies that disproportionately affected the city’s black residents.
Trump has often defended law enforcement policies criticized by others as overly aggressive.
The president’s remarks on Buttigieg came days after conservative radio host Limbaugh told his audience that the country is “still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president.” Trump has not previously discussed Buttigieg’s sexual orientation, though he has often joked about his difficult-to-pronounce name.
Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, placed first in the Iowa caucuses and came in second in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
A viral video Iowa that posted shortly after Iowa showed a woman who had turned in her caucus card for Buttigieg contending that she had no idea he is gay and asking for her card to be returned.
“What I want her to know is that I’m running to be her president too,” Buttigieg said last week on ABC’s The View.
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