Chasten Buttigieg says he’s not “ready to think about” husband Pete Buttigieg potentially launching a 2028 White House bid.
“I’m not naive to the reality that people talk about it — that he’s very good at what he does,” Chasten Buttigieg said Tuesday in an interview with Dana Bash on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” when asked about his spouse making another presidential run.
The former South Bend, Ind., mayor ran for president in 2020 before becoming Transportation Secretary in the Biden administration.
The Buttigiegs are parents to 3-year-old twins.
“I think one of my jobs as their dad and as his spouse is to bring him back down to earth, right? When you’re in politics, it feels like everyone around you, their job is to catapult you,” Buttigieg, promoting his new children’s book, “Papa’s Coming Home,” told Bash.
“As a spouse, your job is to kind of hold onto the tether and pull them back down to earth and remind them of the things that really matter around them,” he continued.
“I think Pete’s really enjoying being a dad right now. It’s very difficult to go through life having people constantly remind you that that could be a possibility, when you’re just trying to focus on being a good dad and being a good family,” Buttigieg said of his 43-year-old husband.
“I’m not really ready to think about it,” he added with a laugh of a 2028 run.
Chasten Buttigieg also expressed relief that a Michigan Senate bid didn’t appear to be in the cards for his family. Pete Buttigieg announced in March that he would not run in a Democratic primary to fill Sen. Gary Peters’s (D) seat.
“I’m glad that he said no to running in Michigan,” Chasten Buttigieg told Bash, in response to a question about if the couple has discussed the potential impact on their family of a 2028 presidential campaign.
“I love him. I believe in him. I think he’s fantastic, but we’ve spent the last four years in Washington and I really wanted him to be home,” he said.
“I think that was a really tough decision for him, because papa was gone a lot,” Chasten Buttigieg added. “And I think he wants to be home right now, too.”
