Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is finding that having a cabinet position is maybe a little more challenging than being the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a city with a population of just over 100,000.
Clearly in over his head with his job, being brutally criticized for his ineptness daily, Buttigieg stepped to the podium on Sunday trying to bring some clarity of what’s going on with the global supply chain debacle which is happening on his watch.
He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” show with the intent to seem competent. A masters class in high-end leadership and crisis management it was not.
For one thing, he placed a large part of the blame for the supply chain mess on the fact that Joe Biden has improved the economy so much that demand for products has caused the issues.
“Look, part of what is happening isn’t just the supply side, it’s the demand side. Demand is off the charts. Retail sales are through the roof. And if you think about those images of ships, for example, waiting at anchor on the West Coast – every one of those ships is full of record amounts of goods that Americans are buying because demand is up because income is up because the president has successfully guided this economy out of the teeth of a terrifying recession.”
He also had to answer a serious question of why he took a month-long paternity leave just months into his new job after he and his husband adopted twins. There are a number of people, including Tucker Carlson of Fox that expected him to be working during the crisis. No go.
“As you might imagine, we’re bottle-feeding, and doing it at all hours of the day and night. And I’m not going to apologize to Tucker Carlson or anyone else for taking care of my premature newborn infant twins.”
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