Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was challenged on “Fox News Sunday” to address husband Chasten Buttigieg’s mocking of Brett Kavanaugh last week amid rising pro-abortion protests and weeks after the Supreme Court justice and his family were targeted by an alleged assassination attempt.
Host Mike Emanual asked the Biden administration official whether he thought it was appropriate for the spouse of a Cabinet secretary to essentially suggest that Kavanaugh had it coming when protestors tried to disrupt his dinner at a Washington, D.C. steak house earlier in the week.
Critics immediately pushed back on Chasten Buttigieg, arguing that he ought not to be condoning such behavior, especially in light of the assassination attempt.
“Let’s go to a red-hot issue in Washington, your husband tweeted after Justice Brett Kavanaugh left a Washington restaurant due to protesters — the tweet reads, ‘Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions.’ Is that appropriate, sir?” Emanuel asked.
Buttigieg began by saying that while he agreed that public officials should be protected from “violence, harassment, and intimidation,” he said that they should expect people to protest peacefully and criticize them while in public.
WATCH:
"Is that appropriate, Sir?" Fox's @MikeEmanuelFox challenges Pete Buttigieg after husband Chasten mocks Justice Kavanaugh amid pro-abortion protests. pic.twitter.com/mLa8591EUh
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) July 10, 2022
“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 replied.
“Remember, that justice never even came in contact with these protesters,” the secretary continued. “Reportedly didn’t see or hear them, and these protesters are upset because a right, an important right that the majority of Americans support was taken away away.
“Not only the right to choose, by the way, but this justice was part of the process of stripping away the right to privacy. As long as I’ve been alive, settled case law in the United States has been that the Constitution protected the right to privacy,” he claimed.
For the record, other historical outrages were once considered “settled case law” including the institution of slavery, forced segregation, and the denial of universal civil rights (like the right of homosexual men like the Buttigieg’s to marry). But for Democrats, allowing unfettered access to abortion means forgetting about these previous ‘settled’ instances of case law.
“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’re going to leave it settled the case law alone,” Buttigieg continued. “So yes, people are upset. They are going to exercise their First Amendment rights, as long as that is peaceful, that’s protected.”
In fact, Kavanaugh never promised to keep Roe v. Wade in place; they did not “lie” during their confirmation hearings.
“Roe never deserved to be written into law in the first place. The conservative justices never said they would preserve it, and it would have been an egregious breach of their duty if they had,” Rich Lowry wrote last month in the New York Post.
