Mayor Pete Buttigieg stands with his husband, Chasten, after announcing his candidacy for president. | Scott Olson/Getty Images 2020 elections Trump on Buttigieg standing with his husband onstage: ‘I think it’s good’

President Donald Trump said in an interview that he has no problem with Pete Buttigieg being openly gay and standing with his husband onstage, saying, “I think it’s good.”

Fox News’ Steve Hilton asked Trump whether he thinks “it’s just great” to have it “not even seen as a big deal” for a male presidential candidate to be onstage with his husband.


“I think it’s absolutely fine,” Trump responded in a clip that was posted on Thursday. “I think that’s something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it’s good.”

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., who is running for the Democratic nomination, has talked frequently in interviews about being gay and has tangled with Vice President Mike Pence over the former Indiana governor’s stances on LGBTQ issues. Last month, Buttigieg called out Pence at the LGBTQ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch in Washington.

“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said . “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me — your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”

In a CNBC interview a few days later, Pence scolded Buttigieg, saying that he “knows better.”

“He’s said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better,” Pence said. “He knows me.”