It doesn't get more Hoosier than this.
Vice President Mike Pence and 2020 Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg have a lot of obvious political differences — see their very split takes on LGBT rights, to name a big one. Yet even as the two debate the topic from a distance, the Indiana natives have kept one big thing in common: civility.
While most 2020 contenders have made President Trump their enemy No. 1, Buttigieg has recently focused on Pence. That's largely because the two are former colleagues: Pence was the governor of Indiana from 2013 until 2017, while Buttigieg has spent seven years mayor of South Bend, the state's fourth largest city.
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Buttigieg first talked about working with Pence on a February Late Show appearance, backhandedly complimenting him for being "a nice guy to your face." The openly gay mayor then roundly rejected Pence's "fanatical" belief that "people like me get up in the morning and decide to be gay." He made similar points again in a Sunday speech, saying that "yes, Mr. Vice President," his marriage to his husband "has moved me closer to God."
Pence wasn't about to let that go, and gently pointed out in a Thursday CNBC appearance that Buttigieg "said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally." He didn't quite decry the words though, just adding that Buttigieg "knows better. He knows me." Watch all of Pence's soft rebuke below, or watch Buttigieg's Pence-slamming speech here. Kathryn Krawczyk
