Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) said as a gay man he knows how to “deal with a bully” when asked about potential attacks from President Trump or other presidential candidates.
“I’m a gay man from Indiana, I know how to deal with a bully,” he said in an interview with CNN.
The South Bend mayor and 2020 candidate also told host Katie Bolduan that he would try to ignore Trump during his presidential campaign.
{mosads}“In many ways, yes, because the problems that we are facing right now are going to grow with or without him,” the 37-year-old mayor said when asked if his goal was to ignore the president.
Buttigieg explained that he wants to refocus elections away from the individual candidates competing toward the people they would be elected to serve.
“I go right back to how our ideas are going to make lives better,” he said.
“I think part of how we got here… was we had an election cycle where our candidate was talking about herself or she was talking about him. And a lot of people at home were saying, ok but who’s talking about me?”
Buttigieg, who previously served in the Navy, was first elected mayor in 2011 at age 29.
He joined a growing field of Democrats who have formed exploratory committees or expressed intent to run for president, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
When asked about the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, Buttigieg told CNN that he viewed them as competitors rather than opponents.
“I think when you’re viewing others as opponents you’re looking to find their weaknesses. When you’re looking at competitors, you think about how everybody brings something to the table,” he said.
“I’m definitely the only left-handed, Maltese-American, Episcopalian, millennial, gay mayor in the race. So I’ve got that lane all to myself.”