Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had social media users cackling after he made an innuendo-filled dig at President Donald Trump's "small" margin of victory in the 2024 election to the delight of the audience at The Late Show.
It's worth noting that Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election was not a "landslide," as he has often claimed. In fact, Trump won with 49.78% of the popular vote, securing victory by approximately 2.2 million votes. This made it the narrowest margin of victory for a president since Richard Nixon’s 1968 election.
Buttigieg, who appeared on the program to offer his immediate reaction to Trump's widely derided address to a joint session of congress, said:
“Let’s remember, despite what you heard tonight, [Trump] came in with just under 50 percent of the vote. He won, I’m not disputing that. But the smallest popular vote margin since Nixon.”
“I wonder how he feels about something that important being that small in his case.”
As the audience applauded—and Buttigieg noted that Trump "has lost support from there and he will continue to"—Colbert himself quipped:
“To be smaller than Tricky Dick gives one pause, I would say."
You can watch their exchange in the video below.
People loved Buttigieg's snarky response.
Regarding Trump's speech, Buttigieg said that the nation is likely "really confused about why our leaders are talking about renaming things on a map"—a reference to the executive order Trump signed calling for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the "Gulf of America"—"instead of getting the price of eggs down."
Buttigieg called the speech "classic Trump," noting that it "was a lot of darkness and it was a lot of dazzle. But there was very, very little about the things that most affect our lives.”
Indeed, Trump showcased the executive orders he has signed and outlined his vision for how Congress should advance his legislative agenda. Trump also praised billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for the damaging cuts to the federal government even though many have been blocked by the courts.
But there was not much, if anything there, about lowering the cost of living or groceries, as he has often claimed he would do (even though he once admitted to Time that he can't actually do much about the matter at all).
His speech came just after his Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recommended that Americans who are worried about the high egg prices should raise chickens in their backyards, an unrealistic and costly non-solution that runs the risk of worsening the avian flu crisis.
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