Buttigieg says he’ll still pick up after his dogs as president

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) said in a new interview that he will likely still clean up after his two dogs if he ends up in the White House.

In an interview with TMZ, the 2020 presidential hopeful confirmed that the dogs would accompany him and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, to the presidential residence, and that he doubted his dogs would see him any differently.

“When you become president, will you still clean up after them?” a TMZ reporter asked.

{mosads}”Well, yeah, you know, the dogs don’t care,” Buttigieg responded. “Either we gotta do it, or somebody does.”

Buttigieg added that his two dogs, who are rescues, came in to their life because he tries to “make myself useful, and Chasten and I found a way to make ourselves useful in the lives of these two dogs.”

“And they’ve made our lives a lot better too,” he added.

Following his announcement earlier this year, Buttigieg has surged to third place in some polling of early primary states, past better-known national figures such as Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) who have struggled to break out in early polling of the Democratic primary.

The mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city is the first openly gay politician to be considered a top contender in a major party primary.