Buttigieg: Biden is right that I’m no Barack Obama, but ‘neither is he’

Pete Buttigieg responded on Sunday to an attack ad from fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden comparing the former vice president’s record to Buttigieg’s, saying neither he nor Biden was comparable to former President Obama.

Asked by “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace to respond to the Biden campaign’s comment that Buttigieg was “no Barack Obama,” the former South Bend, Ind., mayor responded, “Well, he’s right. I’m not, and neither is he. Neither is any of us running for president.”

“This isn’t 2008. This is 2020,” he added. 

Buttigieg also responded to the ad’s shots at his work as mayor compared to Biden’s role in federal initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act.

“This is about how we’re going to turn the page and deliver a better future in the country but also say there are so many communities — cities like mine in the industrial Midwest, rural areas and even neighborhoods in our biggest cities — that are tired of being treated like a punchline,” Buttigieg told Wallace.

Biden, who largely avoided attacks on other Democratic candidates in the early stages of the campaign, released the ad after Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) neck-and-neck finish in the Iowa caucuses, where Biden placed fourth.

Wallace on Sunday also pressed Buttigieg on a moment during Friday’s Democratic debate when he was confronted on racial disparities in policing in South Bend. Buttigieg was widely criticized by criminal justice reform advocates for discussing gang activity in his answer on Friday and told Wallace that he was attempting to make a larger point that the disparities in South Bend were below the national average.

“The disparity is real, it’s a problem, and that’s part of the reason I’m proposing that we legalize marijuana outright, and when we do, we have a process of expungement and looking back to the harm that drug policy have caused,” Buttigieg said.

“We need reform. No one mayor is going to be able to resolve it. This is a national process,” he added.