A former Obama speechwriter and Pod Save America host said Sunday that gay slurs — including “f*ggot” and “c*m guzzling f*g” — are now apparently acceptable as long as it means Democrats win seats in Congress.
Jon Lovett made the remarks while speaking live at the Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, where he appeared alongside his fellow Pod Save America hosts to discuss Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola and allegations surrounding her treatment of staffers and use of gay slurs.
“Do I think it’s great if a boss calls an employee a f*ggot? No, but I think the Senate’s more important,” Lovett said. “But now we’re like, no, the stakes are too high, and we’ve just been through too many rounds of this.”
“There’s not a gay guy from Austin to underneath the docks in Provincetown who wouldn’t be happily called a c*m guzzling f*ggot to have a Democratic Senate — just a mincing butt-munching ass pirate,” Lovett continued. “Go find the gayest f*cking person you can find in the … state of Texas, in the state of Alaska, have [Peltola] kneel, and have a sword go to both sides and say, ‘You may call us whatever the f*ck you want, Mary Peltola, if you win this seat.’”
“It is a privilege to pretend you don’t have to think about the stakes,” he said. “Everybody has to think about the stakes and whether or not Donald Trump can appoint Right-wing anti-choice judges for two years, whether or not we have genuine investigations in the Senate. Like, these are the stakes in the election.”
Lovett’s comments come in the wake of staffers telling the New York Times about Peltola’s jarring behavior, which her campaign has disputed in part and attributed some of the Democrat’s struggles to personal loss at the time.
The Pod Save America co-host specifically admonished the staffers for speaking to the Times: “And the fact that there are people that would be working for a Democratic member of Congress who may have been rude and mean at the darkest moment in her life, by the way, like after experiencing incredible tragedy, and then six weeks before an election to leak that to the Times?”
“You have to feed her lizard, and you’re mad, then quit or shut up,” he yelled.
The remarks are particularly notable coming from a prominent voice in a party that has spent years policing offensive language. Democrats and other Left-wing activists have frequently demanded the “canceling” of individuals over what they deem offensive comments, including social media posts made years earlier. But when the Senate is on the line for Democrats, Lovett is willing to dismiss the same kind of language as a price worth paying.
Peltola, the Democratic nominee challenging Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, has faced a barrage of allegations from former staffers about her workplace conduct. A New York Times report based on interviews with nine former aides described angry and profane outbursts, a physical confrontation with a staffer, and the use of offensive slurs. Four former staffers told the Times they personally heard Peltola use the anti-gay slur “f*ggot” over the years, including, at times, in reference to members of her own staff. She’s also alleged to have wished that a female Planned Parenthood leader would die from a “botched abortion.”
Peltola’s campaign has disputed some of the characterizations in the report, and attributed some of her struggles during that period to the deaths of her husband and mother in 2023.
Lovett, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, is one of the four regular hosts of Pod Save America, alongside fellow former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer.
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