Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Monday defended Senator Mitt Romney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump, praising the senator for acting on his faith and conscience.
“The Senate was not prepared to do its duty and I know that it can be discouraging, demoralizing, and exhausting,” he said during a campaign rally in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Someone in the crowd shouted, “Mitt Romney!” prompting Buttigieg to grin and reply, “That’s right!” as the crowd applauded.
He continued:
If your senator, who I disagree with on all kinds of things, but I think we can agree followed his conscience on this matter, because he was more worried about his relationship with his conscience and with his maker than his relationship with the Republican party, if he was alone in doing that, if he was the only one, doesn’t that say more about what has become of the Republican party in Washington today than anything else?
Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, argued his own faith was proof he was the right Democrat to challenge Trump, who he ridiculed for trying to “cloak himself in religion.”
“Don’t you think he ought to be called to account by a nominee that is not afraid to remind fellow believers that God does not belong to a political party?” Buttigieg asked. “A person of faith who also understands that this country and it’s Constitution belong to people of every religion and no religion equally because that’s what our Constitution says?”
Buttigieg encouraged all voters across the country to unite to defeat Trump and the Republican-led senate.
“Here’s the good news, the senate may have been the jury then, but the verdict is up to us now and we get the last word on this president and on so many of those senators that protected him,” he said.