Booker responds to Onion article mocking Buttigieg over stock photo

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a 2020 presidential hopeful, on Wednesday wryly replied to a satirization from The Onion about fellow White House contender Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., after his campaign received pushback over a photo used to promote his new racial justice plan.

Responding to The Onion’s piece titled “Cory Booker Taken Aback To Find Dozens Of Pictures Of Himself On Buttigieg Campaign Flyers,” the senator tweeted, “It’s weird because I’ve never even been to Kenya.”

It’s weird because I’ve never even been to Kenya. https://t.co/gcmipPNIm7

— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) November 20, 2019

The satirical article was published Wednesday after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Sunday criticized Buttigieg for using a stock photo of a Kenyan woman to promote his new racial justice plan, dubbed the Douglass Plan.

This is not ok or necessary ‍♀️ https://t.co/H9hvQkVWxp

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 17, 2019

The Buttigieg campaign apologized for “any confusion” the photo may have caused and said that using stock photos was standard practice but added that “as our campaign has grown, we have brought all of our web development in-house to guard against mistakes like this.”