Former Vice President Mike Pence's team slammed the Biden administration for "hypocrisy" after the White House called on Pence to apologize for comments he made regarding Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his paternity leave.
Pence called Buttigieg's absence from work "maternity" leave and said everyone else got "postpartum depression" during his absence at the annual Gridiron dinner for journalists on Saturday in Washington, D.C.
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The White House called his comments homophobic and inappropriate, but Pence's spokespeople say the administration's response is hypocritical.
“The Biden administration should spare America the faux outrage. The hypocrisy is especially rich considering their own Secretary of State Antony Blinken joked that he yearned for ‘the old days’ when ‘Jews did all the work,'" spokesman Marc Short said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Buttigieg announced in September 2021 that he and his husband, Chasten, welcomed twins. The children were later hospitalized in October for a respiratory virus infection, and Buttigieg had to take leave. At the same time, the United States was facing a national supply chain crisis, and President Joe Biden was working to pass the now-enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — two areas that fell under Buttigieg's umbrella.
“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” Pence said at the dinner, adding that “thousands of travelers were stranded in airports, the air traffic system shut down, and airplanes nearly collided on our runways" while the secretary was on leave.
Buttigieg said he worked every day from the hospital, but some conservatives criticized the secretary for not working harder to solve the crises at hand, which also drew backlash from those calling the criticism homophobic, per the Hill.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Pence's comments during a press conference on Monday, saying they were offensive to women and people of the LGBT community.
"The former vice president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline,” Jean-Pierre said. “He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”
However, Short thinks the Biden administration should be focusing on other problems.
"The White House would be wise to focus less on placating the woke police and focus more on bank failures, planes nearly colliding in midair, train derailments, and the continued supply chain crisis," Short said of the recent Silicon Valley Bank collapse and Ohio train derailments.
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Chasten Buttigieg tweeted his displeasure with the former vice president's comments.
"An honest question for you, @Mike_Pence, after your attempted joke this weekend. If your grandchild was born prematurely and placed on a ventilator at two months old - their tiny fingers wrapped around yours as the monitors beep in the background - where would you be?" he wrote.