During his four years in office, the former Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, reportedly oversaw a department that spent more than $80 billion on grants for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
That total represented “at least half of the DOT’s entire budget for a typical fiscal year,” <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/07/21/us-news/pete-buttigiegs-dot-spent-80-billion-on-dei-grants-delayed-air-traffic-control-upgrades-records-industry-insiders/">The New York Post</a> reported.
Sources told the Post that at a meeting, Buttigieg told an airline industry executive that improving existing air traffic control would simply increase air traffic, “and so why would that be in his interest?” sources said.
“He was definitely pushing an agenda,&#8221; one air industry official told the Post, adding that Buttigieg had “little to no interest” and took “definitely zero action” for bringing air traffic control up-to-date.
In February 2023, on the same day a FedEx cargo plane almost crashed into a Southwest Airlines plane in Austin, Texas, Buttigieg posted a video to celebrate “Transit Equity Day.”
“Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it’s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “On this Transit Equity Day, we reinforce our commitment to transportation systems that serve those who count on them the most. Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it’s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more.”
That same month, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy ripped the Federal Aviation Administration, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/15/buttigieg-airline-faa-billy-nolen-00087176">saying, </a>“We’ve essentially given you the road map on how to improve safety. &#8230; Too often we’ve seen the federal government and industry act after an incident, after lives are lost, once headlines are made. Our entire mission at the NTSB is to prevent that next accident.”
In August 2023, Buttigieg’s DOT announced the appointment of 24 members to the Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity (ACTE). “They include experts in community engagement, transportation planning, design, research, policy, advocacy, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA),” the Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/secretary-buttigieg-appoints-members-advisory-committee-transportation-equity-acte">wrote</a>.
In February 2025, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated, “Effective immediately, the Department of Transportation will no longer participate in celebrations based on immutable traits or any other identity-based observances. These distractions do nothing to keep planes in the air, trains on the tracks, or ports and highways secure.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Effective immediately, the Department of Transportation will no longer participate in celebrations based on immutable traits or any other identity-based observances. These distractions do nothing to keep planes in the air, trains on the tracks, or ports and highways secure. In…
&mdash; Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDuffy/status/1885855599390245367?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Indiana v Notre Dame – Playoff First Round

Transportation Took A Back Seat As Buttigieg Pushed $80 Billion DEI Agenda

Department of Transportation

Pete Buttigieg

Politics

Transportation

Amid a significant uptick in near-miss incidents at airports across the country, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg pushed for his department to focus on equity.
On February 4, 2023, a FedEx cargo plane nearly crashed into a Southwest Airlines passenger plane on a runway in Austin, Texas. That same day, Buttigieg, who is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/buttigieg-to-pass-on-senate-run-as-he-eyes-white-house-in-2028-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reportedly</a> considering a 2028 presidential run, posted a video in celebration of “transit equity.” 
Disaster was only averted in Austin after the FedEx plane pulled up about 190 feet away from the Southwest plane, which had been spotted by a pilot of the FedEx craft. Both had been cleared to use the runway at the same time by an air traffic controller. The National Safety Transportation Board <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA23FA149.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> one of the primary causes for the near-collision was due to the air traffic controller’s “expectation” that the Southwest plane would have taken off earlier than it did. 
As that situation developed in Austin, Buttigieg posted videos in honor of “Transit Equity Day.” 
“Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it&#8217;s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “On this Transit Equity Day, we reinforce our commitment to transportation systems that serve those who count on them the most.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Transit is not just about getting from A to B, it&#8217;s about reaching jobs, education, health care, and so much more.
On this Transit Equity Day, we reinforce our commitment to transportation systems that serve those who count on them the most. <a href="https://t.co/yh2irNcSEB">pic.twitter.com/yh2irNcSEB</a>
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretaryPete/status/1621952275496280064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
He shared the video alongside Nuria Fernandez, who was then the administrator of the Federal Transit Administration. In that video, she said that the Department of Transportation&#8217;s priorities were “equity, accessibility, climate change.” 
As Buttigieg was promoting equity, a safety crisis was brewing in aviation. The first two months of 2023 saw at least six near-miss incidents recorded by the FAA. These incidents were happening at a “faster pace&#8221; than the previous five years combined, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/01/near-collisions-airlines-00084885" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to a POLITICO analysis. 
Just two weeks later, another near-miss occurred at Logan Airport in Boston after a near-collision between a JetBlue passenger jet and a private aircraft which <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/ntsb-report-jetblue-hop-a-jet-close-call-logan-airport-boston-february-27/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">took off</a> without authorization. 
The increase in near-misses prompted the Federal Aviation Authority to convene a safety convention in March where NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy ripped into them for not adopting safety recommendations that she had given them. 
“We’ve essentially given you the road map on how to improve safety,” Homendy <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/15/buttigieg-airline-faa-billy-nolen-00087176" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, adding that ignored recommendations are “the most frustrating thing for us.” 
“Too often we’ve seen the federal government and industry act after an incident, after lives are lost, once headlines are made,” Homendy said. “Our entire mission at the NTSB is to prevent that next accident.”
At the same convention, Buttigieg said that he was worried about the increase in close calls. 
“While the data remains clear that aviation remains an exceptionally safe form of travel, we take nothing for granted and we are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” he said. 
Near-misses continued to be reported throughout 2023 and 2024, with growing concerns about airline safety, which only intensified after 67 people died in January of this year after an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight over the Potomac River. 
The NTSB released a report on the deadly crash this week, urging the helicopter route that the Black Hawk was on the night of the crash to be shut down if certain runways at Reagan National Airport were in use. The <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AIR2501.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> found that there were over 15,000 close calls between October 2021 and December 2024 between planes and helicopters on that route. 
The Trump administration, which has moved to eliminate equity-focused initiatives from the federal government, has said that it plans to comply with the NTSB recommendations. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pledged Tuesday to implement all of the NTSB recommendations, including continuing the ban on the helicopter route that caused the January crash. 
Duffy also said he would take steps to move the FAA from its reliance on dated technology and would work to move it away from floppy disks and copper wires. 
He promised that increased safety measures would be taken to increase runway safety, which has been a contributing factor in many of the close calls. 
“We are going to deploy resources for runway safety, new technology that will allow our air traffic controllers not to use binoculars in the tower to see where aircraft are at, but to actually have ground radar sensors at our airports that will allow air traffic controllers to see where airplanes are at and better control their movements,&#8221; he said.

Transportation Secretary Buttigieg Testifies On 2025 Budget In House Hearing

Pete Buttigieg Pushed For ‘Transit Equity’ Amid Uptick In Airplane Close Calls

airplanes

National transportation Safety Board

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is reportedly backing out of a potential run for the U.S. Senate to set himself in a better position to compete for the White House in 2028.
Buttigieg bought a house in the Traverse City, Michigan, area in 2020 and went to live there after four years serving in former President Joe Biden’s cabinet.
The former transportation chief considered a run for Michigan’s open Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Buttigieg met with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer about a potential bid. Democrats are anxious to keep control of the seat in 2026.
Buttigieg decided to pass on a Senate run as he eyes a renewed attempt at the Oval Office, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/13/pete-buttigieg-michigan-senate-run-00227583" target="_blank" rel="noopener">POLITICO</a>. Running back-to-back campaigns in 2026 and 2028 would be difficult and could hurt his chances at the White House.
“The hardest decision in politics is to pass on a race you have a very good chance to win,” David Axelrod, a veteran Democratic strategist who has mentored Buttigieg, told POLITICO. “Pete was an A-list recruit and would have been a formidable candidate for the Senate had he chosen to run. But had he won in ’26, it would almost certainly have taken him out of the conversation for ’28.
“This certainly keeps that option open. Beyond that, I have a sense that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and with people in communities like his, where the conversations and concerns are so different than the ones you hear in the echo chamber of Washington,” Axelrod said.
Before being Transportation secretary, Buttigieg’s most notable role was as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the fifth most populous city in the state with just over 100,000 residents. He ran for president in 2020, losing to Biden in the Democratic primary.
As Transportation Secretary, Buttigieg had a mixed rating from voters. In a Rasmussen <a href="https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/democrats_like_buttigieg_others_not_so_much" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poll</a> released in April 2024, 41% of likely voters reported having a favorable impression of Buttigieg, while 40% reported an unfavorable impression, a marked decline in popularity from the year prior.
Most of his support came from Democrats, 63% of whom reported a favorable opinion. Thirty-eight percent of unaffiliated voters and just 18% of Republicans reported a favorable view of Buttigieg as Transportation secretary.

Buttigieg To Pass On Senate Run As He Eyes White House In 2028: Report

Elections

Michigan

Presidency

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy slammed his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, this week on social media as Buttigieg tried to imply that recent government cutbacks could have led to plane crashes that have occurred since the Trump administration took over.
&#8220;The flying public needs answers,&#8221; Buttigieg <a href="https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1891486255889731993">posted</a> on X on Monday. &#8220;How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?&#8221;
His post comes as there have been several recent plane crashes, including a commercial airliner that collided with a helicopter in Washington, D.C., late last month.
&#8220;Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system,&#8221; Duffy responded. &#8220;In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.&#8221;
&#8220;Here’s the truth: the FAA alone has a staggering 45,000 employees,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Less than 400 were let go, and they were all probationary, meaning they had been hired less than a year ago. Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.&#8221;
Duffy said that Buttigieg used the Department of Transportation as &#8220;a slush fund for the green new scam and environmental justice nonsense.&#8221;
&#8220;Not to mention that over 90% of the workforce under his leadership were working from home &#8211; including him. The building was empty!&#8221; he continued. &#8220;When we finally get a full accounting of his mismanagement, I look forward to hearing from him.&#8221;
Buttigieg&#8217;s criticisms of Duffy come as he is considering a run for U.S. Senate in Michigan following the unexpected retirement of Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who said last month that he would not run for re-election in 2026.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mayor Pete failed for four years to address the air traffic controller shortage and upgrade our outdated, World War II-era air traffic control system. In less than four weeks, we have already begun the process and are engaging the smartest minds in the entire world.
Here’s the… <a href="https://t.co/LCL1dswC2T">https://t.co/LCL1dswC2T</a>
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDuffy/status/1891656952662405304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 18, 2025</a></blockquote>

Senate Commerce, Science, And Transportation Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For Sean Duffy

Sean Duffy Shreds Pete Buttigieg Over Problems At FAA

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

General

Sean Duffy

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy highlighted on Sunday some of the ways that the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previous administration</a> was focused on the wrong things inside the Department of Transportation.
Duffy made the remarks during an interview on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State Of The Union&#8221; following two tragic plane crashes that happened last week.
Host Jake Tapper asked Duffy if DEI practices were in any way tied to the accident in Washington, D.C., where a military helicopter collided midair with a commercial passenger jet.
&#8220;So I do know that, in the last administration, they were focused on not safety, but they were focused on changing the name from cockpit to flight deck, or notice to airmen, they want to change it to notice to air mission,&#8221; Duffy said. &#8220;They focused on E.V.s and sustainability and racist roads, things that don&#8217;t matter in regard to safety.&#8221;
&#8220;Our mission since the start has been safety,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And they have lost that mission. And we see, when you don&#8217;t focus on safety and you focus on social justice or the environment, bad things happen.&#8221;
Duffy said that the department was going to assess all the ways that DEI has impacted the DOT and FAA and will release a report on it.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Sean Duffy just dispelled all the media lies about how Trump is just racist for suggesting that DEI played a role in the tragedy that unfolded in Washington, DC.
&#8220;I do know that in the last administration, they were focused not on safety, but they were focused on changing the… <a href="https://t.co/waSAo88ZJy">pic.twitter.com/waSAo88ZJy</a>
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) <a href="https://twitter.com/MediasLies/status/1886059454287815091?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2025</a></blockquote>

Sean Duffy Outlines DEI Initiatives Biden Admin Focused On At Transportation Dept

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Executive

Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has removed his preferred pronouns from his X bio after placing them there in 2019.
“Dear @PeteButtigieg, why did you remove your pronouns?” professor-author Gad Saad asked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Dear <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PeteButtigieg</a>, why did you remove your pronouns? <a href="https://t.co/A0hhwdezld">https://t.co/A0hhwdezld</a>
&mdash; Gad Saad (@GadSaad) <a href="https://twitter.com/GadSaad/status/1885169222344470983?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Because he&#8217;s now a ‘was/were,” one X user <a href="https://x.com/EarlyGates/status/1885184363689550246">quipped</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Buttigieg added his gender pronouns to his bio in 2019. <a href="https://t.co/lyRESzb4Ro">pic.twitter.com/lyRESzb4Ro</a>
&mdash; Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) <a href="https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1885159927271821794?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Chasten Buttigieg, Pete&#8217;s husband, has also removed the pronouns from his X bio.
Times have apparently changed; in 2021, as Pride Month got underway, Chasten Buttigieg spoke of using the “wrong pronoun,&#8221; telling <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chasten-buttigieg-interview-cbsn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CBS News</a>, “Acknowledge that you&#8217;re going to mess up. Messing up is uncomfortable. We don&#8217;t want to mess up, especially if you consider yourself an ally. Some of these things are new. We live in a very heteronormative society, so of course pronouns are going to seem a little off-putting to someone who&#8217;s only done it a certain way for 50, 60, 70 years. But it&#8217;s a very, very simple thing to do to help somebody feel included.”
He added: &#8220;I have messed up. The most important thing to do is when you mess up, apologize, quickly restate the proper pronouns and move on from there. Always ask questions. If you consider yourself an ally, just ask questions. How can I be supportive? How can I be more helpful? How can I make sure that you know this is a safe space where you belong?&#8221;
Literally hours after former President Joe Biden was inaugurated, the White House website permitted users to choose their pronouns.
“As part of the website revamp that occurs during presidential transitions, the White House changed its contact form,” WBTV<a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2021/01/21/biden-administration-allows-users-choose-their-pronouns-remastered-website/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reported</a>. “The form now allows individuals to select from the following list: she/her, he/him, they/them, other, or prefer not to share. Those who select other also have the option to write-in what pronouns they use. People can also choose which prefix they use: Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Mx., other, or none.”
By October 2019, during the Democratic presidential primary, six of the presidential candidates had<a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90404480/6-of-the-2020-democrats-now-list-their-pronouns-in-their-twitter-bios" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> inserted</a> their “preferred personal pronouns” in their social media bios: Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Julián Castro, Cory Booker, and Tom Steyer.

Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg Holds Grassroots Fundraiser In Miami

Times Are Changing: Buttigieg Removes Preferred Pronouns From His Bio

Gender Pronouns

Social Issues

Woke Culture

Wokeness

Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is reportedly considering running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan after Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) announced he would not run for re-election in 2026.
Buttigieg — who moved to Traverse City, Michigan, around two years ago — was being floated as a potential candidate for Michigan governor in 2026, but after Peters&#8217; announcement that he is stepping down, Buttigieg is exploring a Senate run, The Detroit News <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/28/pete-buttigieg-considering-u-s-senate-michigan-bid-gretchen-whitmer-says-she-wont-run/77995300007/?taid=67990e88bd13980001f8970e&amp;utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, citing two unnamed sources. Democratic political consultant Adrian Hemond told The Detroit News, &#8220;This race is going to be instantly nationalized because of how close it was last year. Pete already has a national network.&#8221;
Peters made the surprise retirement announcement on Tuesday morning, saying: “I always thought there would be a time that I would step aside and pass the reins for the next generation. I also never saw service in Congress as something you do your whole life.”
The senator&#8217;s decision blows the door wide open for the 2026 Michigan Senate race. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer quieted rumors about her running for Senate on Tuesday morning as many politicos expect her to run for president in 2028. Whitmer is term-limited as governor at the end of her second term in 2026.
Peters&#8217; retirement will come shortly after his Democratic colleague, Sen. Debbi Stabenow, retired earlier this month. The GOP will look to take advantage of the open Senate seat and cement its hold on the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections. Republicans have not won a Senate election in Michigan since 1994.
Michigan voters will also elect their next governor in 2026. Multiple people have expressed interest in the 2026 Senate race, but no one has officially announced a campaign for the open seat.
Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, before running for president in 2020. Former President Joe Biden then tapped Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary. Buttigieg was criticized for his response to multiple transportation disasters, including the East Palestine, Ohio, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/buttigieg-on-response-to-east-palestine-train-derailment-not-about-who-looks-good-or-who-looks-bad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">train derailment</a>, and the Francis Scott Key Bridge <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/6-people-presumed-dead-after-cargo-ship-crash-levels-baltimore-bridge" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collapse</a> in Baltimore.

Pete Buttigieg Reportedly Considering Run For U.S. Senate

Senate

U.S. Senate

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor-turned-Transportation Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pete-buttigieg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pete Buttigieg</a> took a virtual wave of backlash on X after he compared the accomplishments of President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration to the Hoover Dam.
&#8220;I&#8217;m confident that a century from now, future Americans will look back on the work we’ve done—much as we look at the Hoover Dam—and see how the Biden-Harris Administration&#8217;s &#8216;Big Deal&#8217; for infrastructure made big things possible,&#8221; Buttigieg captioned a video he posted on Tuesday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I&#39;m confident that a century from now, future Americans will look back on the work we’ve done—much as we look at the Hoover Dam—and see how the Biden-Harris Administration&#39;s &quot;Big Deal&quot; for infrastructure made big things possible. <a href="https://t.co/SQEjzm8Mi6">pic.twitter.com/SQEjzm8Mi6</a>
&mdash; Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretaryPete/status/1874153554522386906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;President Biden arrived in office with a sober recognition of the scale of the problems our country was facing,&#8221; Buttigieg narrated the brief video himself, claiming that it was the Biden administration — with him in charge of transportation — that had corrected the bottlenecks in the supply chain as COVID restrictions began to lift.
Buttigieg went on to repeat the debunked claim that Biden&#8217;s administration had &#8220;created&#8221; millions of jobs – despite the fact that many of the jobs represented people returning to work after COVID rather than new jobs created and that nearly every jobs report in the last year had to be revised downward after the fact.
&#8220;Sir, are you high?&#8221; The Federalist&#8217;s Mollie Hemingway posted in response.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
sir, are you high
&mdash; Mollie (@MZHemingway) <a href="https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1874260618645209384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;If you clowns had been in charge of building the Hoover Dam, it would have cost 400 billion dollars and we wouldn&#8217;t have started building it yet,&#8221; John Hawkins posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
If you clowns had been in charge of building the Hoover Dam, it would have cost 400 billion dollars and we wouldn&#39;t have started building it yet.
&mdash; John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnhawkinsrwn/status/1874338394446479477?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The entire theme of this administration has been boasting of being the most incredible, history-making, innovative and celebrated administration of all time, despite no one being able to name a single thing they&#8217;ve done. It is obnoxious, but they keep strutting around &#8230;&#8221; Chad Felix Greene added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The entire theme of this administration has been boasting of being the most incredible, history-making, innovative and celebrated administration of all time, despite no one being able to name a single thing they&#39;ve done.
It is obnoxious, but they keep strutting around&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/3E9qCyrOE9">https://t.co/3E9qCyrOE9</a>
&mdash; Chad Felix Greene 🇮🇱 (@chadfelixg) <a href="https://twitter.com/chadfelixg/status/1874490709753123290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Maybe focus on trying build one single EV charging station, Peter,&#8221; Steven L. Miller suggested.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Maybe focus on trying build one single EV charging station, Peter. <a href="https://t.co/dZAAYlvnFo">https://t.co/dZAAYlvnFo</a>
&mdash; Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1874299364841250880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Those 7 federal charging stations will live on forever!&#8221; Phil Kerpen cracked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Those 7 federal charging stations will live on forever! <a href="https://t.co/qViApWyt3m">https://t.co/qViApWyt3m</a>
&mdash; Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) <a href="https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1874181500801081775?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;When literally all of us are dead and therefore none of you will be around to disprove my claim here, I pinky swear that these four disastrous years will ackshually be looked upon fondly,&#8221; Jerry Dunleavy responded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
‘when literally all of us are dead and therefore none of you will be around to disprove my claim here, I pinky swear that these four disastrous years will ackshually be looked upon fondly’ <a href="https://t.co/H8C6ZlUJaP">https://t.co/H8C6ZlUJaP</a>
&mdash; Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) <a href="https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1874346895608586511?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I’m confident that a century from now, you will be a footnote explaining a complicated joke about bureaucracy,&#8221; Jason Nelson concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I’m confident that a century from now, you will be a footnote explaining a complicated joke about bureaucracy.
&mdash; Jason Nelson (@RealJasonNelson) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealJasonNelson/status/1874204017557188925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Transportation Officials Hold Press Conference On Upcoming Thanksgiving Travel

Pete Buttigieg Mocked For Comparing Biden Admin’s Accomplishments To Hoover Dam

Pete Buttigieg Mocked For Comparing Biden Admin's Accomplishments To Hoover Dam

Biden Administration

Joe Biden

Try to think back, if you can, to the transition period of the Biden-Harris administration. I&#8217;m talking about the personnel decisions — and particularly the key Cabinet appointments — that the incoming administration made in the weeks after the media called the race for Joe Biden, back at the end of 2020.
Those personnel decisions were treated as non-stories. They came and went, and the media didn’t talk much about them. There wasn&#8217;t a lot of outrage or debate. Pete Buttigieg, for example, became the Transportation Secretary because he likes trains and was vaguely interested in airplanes. And he’s gay. Those were his qualifications. So they put him in charge of the Department of Transportation, which has a budget of tens of billions of dollars and oversees the nation&#8217;s railways and airports. Why not? It made sense to Democrats at the time. What&#8217;s the worst that could happen? A train carrying toxic chemicals might derail somewhere in Ohio? What are the odds of that?
And then there was the nomination of Lloyd Austin to lead the Defense Department. That was really inspiring. You see, Lloyd Austin was serving on the board of Raytheon, one of the biggest defense contractors in the world. Raytheon was paying him a lot of money. And then, without much fanfare, the Biden-Harris administration appointed Lloyd Austin to run the Pentagon. What could go wrong? Surely Lloyd Austin wouldn&#8217;t try to enrich his former colleagues in the defense industry by, say, sending billions of dollars worth of weaponry to a tiny, corrupt country in Eastern Europe. That would be unthinkable.
And then there was the appointment of someone using the name Rachel Levine — a biological male originally named Richard who decided in middle age to start wearing a dress and rebrand himself as Rachel. It made perfect sense, we were told, for a man deeply confused about the basic realities of human biology to oversee the nation&#8217;s healthcare system. Sure, he might pressure hospitals to castrate and sterilize as many children as possible. He might pose for some uncomfortable photographs with Sam Brinton, the cross-dressing nuclear waste expert and kleptomaniac who’d been terrorizing airport baggage claims all across the Eastern seaboard for years, before also being appointed for a role in the Biden Administration. But that&#8217;s the cost of human progress, the transition team told us.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1485-the-matt-walsh-show-sefb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
I&#8217;m going through these appointments to make a couple of points. The first point is that all of these appointments — and many others like them, including the appointment of an open-borders advocate to run the Department of Homeland Security — were grotesque. None of them should have been allowed to go through. But they did, and the country paid the predictable consequences. Biden appointed more cross dressers that we’d been used to seeing in government at that point, but otherwise his picks were exactly what we’ve come to expect. A bunch of corrupt and useless bureaucrats, who went on to do what corrupt and useless bureaucrats always do.
Thankfully, it’s clear that Donald Trump is not going to follow that typical strategy. Donald Trump&#8217;s incoming administration is already unlike any other in American history. This is a transition team that&#8217;s making a concerted effort to select competent, independent Cabinet officials — people who aren&#8217;t self-interested cronies, or morons who are selected on the basis of identity politics. He’s picking people who are actually competent and who might actually advance the agenda that the American people voted for. Imagine that.
Let&#8217;s start with one of the selections that was announced last night. Donald Trump revealed that Pete Hegseth, a Bronze Star recipient who served nearly two decades in the military — including in Iraq and Afghanistan — will be nominated as Secretary of Defense. 
Hegseth is most recognizable at the moment as a Fox News host, where he often advocates on behalf of veterans. He&#8217;s also used his platform to outline changes that, in his view, need to be made to the military immediately. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 Pete Hegseth All Clips" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p4iags3bPgc?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is all common-sense stuff. The overwhelming majority of countries don&#8217;t allow women in combat roles, for obvious reasons. And no, the military shouldn&#8217;t be teaching its soldiers about &#8220;white rage,&#8221; nor should the Pentagon be focused on recruiting girl bosses or &#8220;diverse&#8221; applicants. That strategy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-military-is-collapsing-under-the-weight-of-its-own-wokeness">isn&#8217;t working</a>. The military is now regularly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-military-is-collapsing-under-the-weight-of-its-own-wokeness">missing</a> its recruitment goals primarily because they&#8217;ve gone out of their way to alienate white men for political reasons. As a result, our military is much smaller than China&#8217;s. Morale is terrible. We&#8217;re constantly losing war games, as Hegseth pointed out. And making matters worse, our military leaders are clearly inept, as evidenced by the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
With this track record, the absolute last person you&#8217;d want to pick for the job of Defense Secretary is another Lloyd Austin. The Lloyd Austins of the world are the ones who created the very situation that Hegseth was talking about in the clip. That’s why you need someone who&#8217;s motivated and equipped to make some radical changes. You want someone who knows what it&#8217;s like to be a soldier in a warzone, and who hasn&#8217;t been corrupted by his connections to the military-industrial complex. In short, you want someone like Pete Hegseth.
As you&#8217;d expect, Democrats don&#8217;t see it that way. They lost their minds when Trump briefly paused the flow of military weapons to Ukraine, and now they&#8217;re losing their minds because Pete Hegseth might spurn the defense industry, too. Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, was particularly enraged. She was sneering last night, along with a lot of her colleagues. She <a href="https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1856502912551158049">wrote</a>: &#8220;A Fox &amp; Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense. I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers. Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected.&#8221;
So right away, the woman who pretended to be an Indian tries to dismiss Hegseth as a &#8220;weekend co-host.&#8221; She completely ignores his military service, his ideas, and his advocacy for veterans. We&#8217;re supposed to believe that, if Hegseth had served on the board of Raytheon, he would somehow be vastly more equipped for the job. We apparently want Defense Secretaries who are bureaucrats or defense contractors. Because that has obviously worked out so well over the past three decades.
And in the context of a second Trump administration, the criticisms of Pete Hegseth make even less sense. Recall that, under the first Trump administration, the Pentagon actively sabotaged Trump&#8217;s policy objectives. Our envoy to Syria has admitted this. It&#8217;s one of the most incredible admissions ever printed, but it never got much attention. The envoy stated that officials in the first Trump administration <a href="https://theohiostar.com/news/special-representative-for-syria-james-jeffrey-we-were-always-playing-shell-games-to-hide-the-number-of-u-s-troops-in-syria/ohstarstaff/2020/11/16/">were</a>, &#8220;always playing shell games&#8221; in order to hide the actual number of U.S. troops in Syria from Trump.” That&#8217;s an actual quote — &#8220;shell games.&#8221; In other words, they were lying to the commander in chief. Trump wanted troops to leave Syria, and they told him the troops were gone. And it wasn&#8217;t true.
People should&#8217;ve been put on trial for that. But it just faded from memory. Given that background, you can understand why — this time around — Trump wants someone he can actually depend upon. He wants to work with people he can trust. That&#8217;s the single most important quality that a Cabinet pick can have. And that&#8217;s very obvious to Trump now, after what he experienced in his first term.
But Democrats are still going to resist this nomination anyway, for reasons that they can&#8217;t even articulate. They just know that it would be a disaster for them if an outsider took control of the Defense Department. 
That&#8217;s why one of CNN&#8217;s hosts tried to push back on Scott Jennings&#8217; arguments for Hegseth last night. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="004 Scott Jennings" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ACUR7bBZXiM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;
For starters, it&#8217;s pretty amusing — as Jennings points out — for television pundits to attack Hegseth for being a &#8220;TV host,&#8221; when they&#8217;re all television personalities too. Either being on television makes you an idiot, or it doesn&#8217;t. And if it does, then all of these people should quit their jobs now, before CNN closes down and fires them anyway (which appears more likely to happen with each passing day).
And then the anchor says that civilians give the orders in the military, which is obviously true. But it&#8217;s the Pentagon — which is also run by civilians — that has the job of carrying out those orders. And as Jennings pointed out, the Pentagon has repeatedly failed to do its job. They were wrong about the spy balloon and what it was doing. They were wrong about the logistics of the Afghanistan pullout, which resulted in the deaths of American servicemembers. They couldn&#8217;t even build a pier properly. So what exactly is the argument for keeping these kinds of people in control of the Defense Department? How could we possibly do any worse than they&#8217;ve been doing?
That&#8217;s a point that Tom Homan, the incoming border czar, just made on Fox News. He was asked whether he was worried about having the title of &#8220;border czar,&#8221; given that Kamala Harris has done everything she can to run away from that title. Here&#8217;s how Homan responded:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨 HOST: &quot;The last person who was &#39;border czar&#39; didn&#39;t want to be called border czar. You&#39;re proud of it, right?&quot;
HOMAN: &quot;I&#39;m going to look like a genius. Because when you follow up failure you can&#39;t help but succeed.&quot; 😂 lmao <a href="https://t.co/fyCbWbXqTs">pic.twitter.com/fyCbWbXqTs</a>
&mdash; Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) <a href="https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1856049366651547967?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 11, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to look like a genius. Because when you follow up failure you can&#8217;t help but succeed.&#8221; 
That pretty much sums up the entire transition so far.
We&#8217;re so used to administration officials who lie to us — who try to use emotional blackmail and manipulation — that it&#8217;s pretty much impossible to be disappointed by the incoming Trump administration at this point. Just by demonstrating that they don&#8217;t care about the media&#8217;s manipulation and false narratives, they&#8217;re already well ahead of their predecessors.
It&#8217;s also clear that the federal bureaucracy, which functioned to undermine Trump at every possible opportunity, isn&#8217;t going to exist in the same form the second time around. Last night Trump officially announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be running the Department of Government Efficiency, (DOGE). Trump said the goal of this new department will be to &#8220;dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.&#8221; He said they&#8217;ll be done within two years — what he called the &#8220;perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence.&#8221;
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
The task of &#8220;dismantling government bureaucracy&#8221; should be the number-one focus of Trump&#8217;s second term. And Elon Musk is just the guy to do it. He showed up to Twitter and immediately axed 80% of the staff. Everyone in the media said it would destroy the company. They said the whole site would crash and be forgotten. And yet, here we are. Two years later, the place is running better than ever. The problem in the federal government is like Twitter, multiplied by a million.
Unlike every other company on the planet, the federal government doesn&#8217;t undergo layoffs. It just grows and grows, year after year. It siphons more and more money from taxpayers, without any accountability. These bureaucrats call themselves &#8220;public servants,&#8221; but really the public is serving them. We&#8217;re the ones who go to work every day to pay their salaries. And what exactly do they do for us? Do we really need these people to spend tens of thousands of dollars on &#8220;gender equity&#8221; in places like Honduras? Do we need them to develop new bat coronaviruses in secret labs in Wuhan? Do we need them to use our money to subsidize some of the most useless college degrees in existence? Do we need them to conduct fraudulent criminal trials of the leading presidential candidate? Do we need them to issue insane new regulations banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles?
Of course we don&#8217;t. We&#8217;ve never needed any of that.
What we have needed, for a long time now, is for the government to get out of the way of human progress. They need to stop spending and printing money as if it&#8217;s endless. They need to do what every American in the private sector has to do, which is to justify their salaries. They need to explain how exactly they&#8217;re serving the public, instead of the other way around.
This is a reckoning that would&#8217;ve been unthinkable if Kamala Harris had won this election. We&#8217;d be dealing with another parade of useless, BIPOC-transgender-whatever appointees who exist only to check boxes. Now things are different. And giving Musk and Ramaswamy the hacksaw with a directive to go to town on the federal bureaucracy means that maybe, for the first time ever, some real and substantial cuts will actually be made. No Republican president in modern times has ever actually done anything to cut the size of government. Much less have they taken any steps to gut the federal bureaucracy and get rid of all the useless people and their useless departments and programs. In fact, Republicans have only contributed to the problem.
There is good reason to think that this time will be different. Trump has picked the two right guys for the job. Which is why the federal bureaucrats are panicking, and their panic will only become more unhinged in the days ahead.
For everyone else — for people who actually earn their living — it&#8217;s a time to celebrate something that&#8217;s never happened before in modern American history. The behemoth federal bureaucracy is about to get what it deserves. What’s been coming to it for decades.
If Trump fulfills his promises and simply lets the people he’s hiring do the jobs they’ve been hired to do, it will mean ultimately that America becomes a freer, safer, more prosperous place. If this is the &#8220;fascism&#8221; they warned us about, it can&#8217;t come soon enough.

Lee Greenwood Visits “FOX & Friends”

The Media Panics Over Trump’s Administration Picks

The Media Panics Over Trump's Administration Picks

2024 Election

Cabinet

Department of Defense

Donald Trump

Matt Walsh

Opinion

Pete Hegseth

Rachel Levine

Sam Brinton

SpaceX and Tesla CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elon Musk</a> and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg discussed allegations that the federal government was preventing good Samaritans from delivering supplies via helicopter to storm-ravaged North Carolina on Friday.
Musk posted a screenshot of text messages he had received from a SpaceX engineer on a helicopter trying to land in North Carolina and deliver supplies, including Starlink terminals, for victims of the devastating flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. A group of SpaceX engineers recorded a video of the storm&#8217;s destruction in the state while attempting to land.
&#8220;SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals &amp; supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and @FEMA is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!! They just took this video a few hours ago, where you can see the level of devastation: roads, houses, electricity, water supply and ground Internet connections completely destroyed. @FEMA wouldn’t let them land to deliver critical supplies … my blood is boiling,&#8221; Musk wrote on X.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
SpaceX engineers are trying to deliver Starlink terminals &amp; supplies to devastated areas in North Carolina right now and <a href="https://twitter.com/fema?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FEMA</a> is both failing to help AND won’t let others help. This is unconscionable!!
They just took this video a few hours ago, where you can see the level of… <a href="https://t.co/abpOsfNenF">pic.twitter.com/abpOsfNenF</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1842284913279586447?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Musk said the information he was getting from his employees showed that &#8220;[the] level of belligerent government incompetence is staggering!!&#8221;
In the messages, the employee told Musk that &#8220;it&#8217;s true&#8221; that the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) is stopping people from helping victims of Helene.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1726313279401000&amp;usg=AOvVaw115_qPFFEePDP86-Fvo-Vd">Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!</a>
&#8220;They are about to shut down the Air space to &#8216;regulate&#8217; the private choppers we are riding in to deliver Starlink and supplies. We are pushing back with trump team as well to help us, but not looking good,&#8221; the employee said. &#8220;We need help to get the word out about FEMA, we spoke to Ivanka [Trump] and handed out starlinks with her yesterday but FEMA then showed up and started blocking us.&#8221;
&#8220;The largest concern for us here is the FAA throttling flights for our choppers where they are requiring To/from information and mission now to deliver discrete code. Doing this could take a long time and [is] very cumbersome to the ops. This is the largest concern and most help we could use,&#8221; the message added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Just received this text 20 mins ago.
The level of belligerent government incompetence is staggering!! <a href="https://t.co/wWbBR7FfUo">pic.twitter.com/wWbBR7FfUo</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1842252268856324160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
No <a href="https://t.co/xBAkWZHMf4">pic.twitter.com/xBAkWZHMf4</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1842293292827840620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Buttigieg responded to Musk&#8217;s post on X, <a href="https://x.com/SecretaryPete/status/1842271678274928964" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a>, &#8220;No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.&#8221;
Musk shot back, telling the Biden Transportation Secretary, &#8220;There are hundreds of reports of FEMA/FAA blocking flights. This literally just happened. I will follow you. Please DM me the number to call.&#8221; Sixteen minutes later, Musk pinged Buttigieg again, writing, &#8220;Still waiting … the helicopter is trying to land to deliver critical supplies. What’s the number to call?&#8221;
Finally, Buttigieg apparently called the SpaceX CEO and the two discussed the issue. Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1842300911038939506" target="_blank" rel="noopener">thanked</a> Buttigieg after the call, adding, &#8220;Hopefully, we can resolve this soon.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1726313279401000&amp;usg=AOvVaw115_qPFFEePDP86-Fvo-Vd">Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!</a>
Earlier on Friday, whistleblowers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/whistleblowers-accuse-fema-of-misappropriating-funds-leaving-first-responders-without-orders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> FEMA of misappropriating taxpayer dollars and leaving first responders on the ground with no orders.
“My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical management issue. FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA.”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk Says Feds Are Preventing Delivery Of Supplies In NC, Talks To Pete Buttigieg

FEMA

Hurricane Helene

Natural Disaster

North Carolina

U.S.

The Democrats who did not make the cut in the veepstakes spoke out on Tuesday after Vice President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kamala-harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a> picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harris-expected-to-tap-minnesota-governor-tim-walz-as-running-mate?topStoryPosition=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to be her running mate</a>.
Walz edged out Pennsylvania Governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/josh-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Josh Shapiro</a>, Kentucky Governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/andy-beshear" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andy Beshear</a>, Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-kelly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Kelly</a> (D-AZ), and Transportation Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pete-buttigieg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pete Buttigieg</a> to join Harris&#8217; ticket. Walz and Shapiro were reportedly the final two frontrunners.
In a lengthy <a href="https://x.com/JoshShapiroPA/status/1820827281658446166" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>, Shapiro said he had the opportunity to speak to the vice president on Sunday about her &#8220;vision for the role and the campaign ahead.&#8221; After noting that the choice of running mate was a &#8221; deeply personal decision&#8221; for himself and Harris, Shapiro said he still has work to do while serving as Pennsylvania&#8217;s governor.
&#8220;I know that Governor Tim Walz is an exceptionally strong addition to the ticket who will help Kamala move our country forward. Lori and I consider Tim and Gwen to be good friends of ours and we are excited for them and for the country to get to know the great people we know them to be,&#8221; Shapiro said.
Shapiro, who insisted that Harris has his &#8220;enthusiastic support,&#8221; concluded, &#8220;Over the next 90 days, I look forward to traveling all across the Commonwealth to unite Pennsylvanians behind Kamala Harris’ campaign to defeat Donald Trump, become the 47th President of the United States, and build a better future for our country.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1722714742764000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1XzmEsRwzti1RFNuISwYgd">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
Harris and Walz are expected to make their <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tim-walz-vp-kamala-harris-running-mate-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first appearance</a> together as running mates in Philadelphia later on Tuesday. Shapiro indicated he would be in attendance, <a href="https://x.com/JoshShapiroPA/status/1820827281658446166" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying on X</a>, &#8220;See you tonight in Philly.&#8221;
Beshear <a href="https://x.com/AndyBeshearKY/status/1820834225014047045" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X that it was an &#8220;honor&#8221; to be considered in the process. Walz &#8220;is a great friend and a great choice,&#8221; Beshear said, adding that he &#8220;fully&#8221; supports the ticket and will work to get Harris elected president.
Also on X, Kelly <a href="https://x.com/CaptMarkKelly/status/1820831959347798381" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Harris and Walz &#8220;are going to move us forward&#8221; and are &#8220;already building a campaign to unite our country.&#8221; Kelly added that he and his wife, Gabby Giffords, are &#8220;ready to do everything we can to help them win.&#8221;
Like Kelly, Buttigieg did not mention the vetting process in his first public statement about the Harris-Walz ticket.
He <a href="https://x.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1820829039189258412" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X, &#8220;Tim Walz is an exceptionally effective governor &#8211; and also great to work with. I’m excited for what his Midwestern voice, military experience, and common-sense values will bring to our winning ticket, and for everything the Harris-Walz administration will deliver for Americans.&#8221;

Menu