Donald Trump Jr. went on a homophobic rant against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during an appearance on a far-right cable news network Wednesday night.
The eldest son of former President Donald Trump was a guest on Newsmax’s “Prime News,” where he was asked to comment on President Joe Biden’s handling of the derailment of a train carrying hazardous substances in Ohio earlier this month.
Shortly after saying “Joe doesn’t give a crap” and “couldn’t care less” about East Palestine, Ohio, he set his sights on Buttigieg’s qualifications for his cabinet position.
Despite Buttigieg's impressive resume — he’s a Harvard graduate, a Rhodes scholar, an Iraq War veteran, and a two-term mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana — Junior was emphatic to assert the 41-year-old only got a job in the Biden administration because he is an openly gay man.
“You know, Pete has no business in that position,” the 45-year-old Trump told Newsmax’s Carl Higbie.
“But, you know, he’s the guy who had no business running for president but they let him do that cause he’s gay and they check off a box and then he didn’t win, so (they said) ‘he’s the gay guy, so we gotta give him something, let’s make him transportation secretary,’” he said.
“Plus the time he spent chest-feeding while we were in the midst of a supply chain crisis,” Junior added, referring to Buttigieg’s paternity leave in late 2021.
The first openly LGBTQ cabinet member and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, announced they had become fathers to twins on Aug. 17, 2021.
Junior’s father traveled to East Palestine on Wednesday, where he criticized President Biden’s response, while handing out Trump-branded water bottles and MAGA hats — in an appearance slammed as “pure political theatre” by the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican PAC.
Buttigieg, who traveled to East Palestine on Thursday, was widely criticized for not visiting the area earlier.
However, the twice-impeached president — whose administration proudly moved to downsize the Environmental Protection Agency — has also been criticized for abandoning rail safety rules that had been pursued during the Obama administration.
“Trump shredded the safety regulations that could have kept East Palestine residents safe and then rolled into town with Trump water and a campaign slogan,” the Lincoln Project tweeted. “He’s as useless now as he was as a president.”
_____
