Pete Buttigieg on #SharpieGate: "I'm Really Worried About" And "Pity" Trump, This Is "Literally Pathetic"

Thursday morning on CNN's "New Day," presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg weighed in on #SharpieGate, saying he is "really worried" about the president and lamenting that he has reduced the prestige of the office.





#sharpiegate: After coming under fire for spreading false information that Alabama was 'most likely' to be hit by Hurricane Dorian, Trump presented a map to reporters that appeared to be altered with a Sharpie to include Alabama in Dorian's path.https://t.co/WrwO9DLKmC — TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) September 5, 2019







#Sharpiegate trends as people mock Trump for showing Hurricane Dorian path map altered with pen https://t.co/6MSHKnoWxz — Newsweek (@Newsweek) September 5, 2019

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I'm really worried about him. I feel sorry for the president. And that is not the way we should feel about the most powerful figure in this country. Somebody on whose wisdom and judgment our lives literally depend. I don't know if he felt it necessary to pull out a sharpie and change his map, I don't know if one of his aides believed they had to do that in order to protect his ego. No matter how you cut it, this is an unbelievably sad state of affairs for our country. If our presidency isn't in good shape then our country isn't in good shape. On one level it is laughable, on another, it is exactly why we need something different.



And by the way, I also think it's why you're seeing a lot of independents and people who have voted Republican over the years saying you know what, this has become something we've all got to pull together and create an alternative to, because we just as a country cannot go on with these. This is humiliating, this is an embarrassing moment for our country, and we seem to see a new national embarrassment every day.



BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN: So when you say you feel sad, you feel sad for the president or for the country?



BUTTIGIEG: Both. Look, when the presidency has been reduced to this, all of us are diminished because the presidency is something to be looked up to even when we disagree. What we're seeing there is literally pathetic. It makes you feel a kind of pity for everybody involved, and that's now how I want to feel about a president whether it's for my party or the other.