Listen to this article

Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg is an American politician. He has served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020. Buttingieg is a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election. He has issued a sharp new response to comments regarding his sexuality from right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh. Buttigieg was speaking at a televised CNN town hall, he said, “One thing about my marriage is it’s never involved me having to send hush money to a porn star after cheating on my spouse with him or her”. He was referring to Limbaugh and Donald Trump.

Buttigieg added, “So they wanna debate family values? Let’s debate family values. I’m ready”. It is noteworthy that Limbaugh has been the target of bipartisan criticism since he argued on air that the United States is not ready for a gay president and many voters would not react well to the sight of a gay candidate kissing his husband on stage. He claimed Trump had told him in a private phone call to never apologize. It is important that low-information voters probably hadn’t known about Buttigieg’s sexuality until he talked about it on his show.

Limbaugh has a long history of making homophobic remarks. He has long been a supporter of Trump. He is currently married to his 4^th wife, having been divorced 3 times. Buttigieg’s reference to paying a porn star mentions Trump’s alleged affair with actress Stormy Daniels. She received $130,000 from Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016 and it was a part of a nondisclosure agreement. Trump also stands alleged by a number of women over sexual harassment and assault.  Limbaugh’s comments come as Buttigieg tried to maintain his front-runner status in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.  He claimed victory in the Iowa caucuses and ran a close 2^nd in the New Hampshire primary. But, national polls threw him well behind Bernie Sanders.