Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has accused President Donald Trump’s administration of radicalizing Americans.
In an interview with Vox published on Thursday, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana noted that “when people are economically or socially dislocated, they are always more vulnerable to being radicalized.”
“And I think a lot of Americans are being radicalized by this administration,” Buttigieg said. “The experience of disruption that’s gone on, especially in the interior, has obviously made it more fertile to being taken advantage of by people like this president.”
Buttigieg, who is openly gay, also hit back at critics who have claimed he was getting an easier ride on the early campaign trail than his female counterparts, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“Well, if somebody is pointing out that there are advantages — many of them unfair — that go along with being male in our society and in our politics, then I completely agree,” Buttigieg said.
But “if somebody is saying that I should not compete because I’m a man, I don’t know what to say to that,” he added. “And if somebody is saying that I had it easy, I would invite them to join the military and enter Indiana politics in 2010 as a gay person. See how easy they find it.”