Ex-transport secretary Pete Buttigieg makes not-so-subtle ‘size’ joke about Trump on Late Show

Pete Buttigieg made a cheeky remark about how “small” Donald Trump is, following the president’s controversial and at times baffling address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday (4 March).

The gay former US secretary of transportation, who made history in 2020 as the first out LGBTQ+ person in US history to hold a full-time cabinet post, made the remark during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert shortly after the speech concluded.

“Let’s remember, despite what you heard tonight, [Trump] came in with just under 50 per cent of the vote,” Buttigieg said. “He won, I’m not disputing that. But the smallest popular vote margin since Nixon.”

The Democrat then coyly added: “I wonder how he feels about something that important being that small in his case”.

Colbert responded: “To be smaller than Tricky Dick, gives one pause.”

Pete Buttigieg isn’t the first Democrat to draw a connection between Trump always wanting to be the “biggest”, and what might be behind that focus.

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention, President Obama joked about Trump’s “obsession with crowd sizes,” while making a hand gesture implying it wasn’t the crowds Trump was obsessed with.

During his address to Congress on 4 March, Trump, with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson behind him, doubled down on his efforts to mitigate progressive policies.

He praised his own executive orders, which were signed on his return to the Oval Office, several of which have been used to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as well as fundamental LGBTQ+ rights.

The president also took the time to push a bizarre, and false, claim that the government was spending millions to make mice transgender.

Buttigieg described the speech as not only confusing, but also it proved that the current administration wasn’t focused on important economic issues.

“The State of the Union, I think, is really confused about why our leaders are talking about renaming things on a map instead of getting the price of eggs down,” he said. “Classic Trump, right?

“It was a lot of darkness and it was a lot of dazzle, but there was very, very little about the things that most affect our lives.”

Buttigieg said Trump’s lack of focus will result in him losing support, adding a “good chunk of people who voted for him believed “he was going to make them better off.”

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.