Pete Buttigieg’s husband defends him after Tucker Carlson says he lied about being gay

Carlson appeared to suggest that Buttigieg — a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and former presidential candidate — only announced his homosexuality when it served him politically, and used this to denounce the mass shooting at the Colorado LGBTQ nightclub in which one was killed was at least five people.

Carlson claimed that until a few years ago, the Secretary of Transportation “wouldn’t even admit he was gay.” That shouldn’t come as a surprise given the increasingly vicious attacks on gays, including by Carlson.

Buttigieg has stated that he feared that coming out publicly would have ended his career and booted him from the military.

Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg, mocked Carlson for following the “simple,” ugly smear in his appearance on CNN This Morning.

“That kind of rhetoric is easy. It’s so easy to attack people and go on your talk show and cheer people on for something that’s not actually happening,” he told CNN’s Don Lemon.

“They have a big platform with these megaphones,” he added, referring to right-wing media figures. “Instead of focusing on real problems, people’s lives, and making them better, they chose to focus on hate.”

He pointed out that his husband would have been serving under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that would have led to his discharge from the military if he disclosed his homosexuality.

Chasten Buttigieg suggested that Carlson, who was trying to claim that the transport secretary was not doing his job, should take just a second to figure out what he’s accomplishing by following him Twitter.