Buttigieg slams Trump for flipping off an autoworker
“Just in-character for him.”
By Robin Dorner
Editor in Chief
President Donald Trump “flipped the bird” to an autoworker who called him a “pedophile protector” yesterday at an event held at an automobile plant in Michigan, where Trump was visiting.
Trump not only flipped the worker off, but he also said “f*ck you” twice, according to a recording made by TMZ.
“In some ways, it’s just in-character for him to be that way, and obviously my sympathies are with the worker and not the president,” Pete Buttigieg, former US Secretary of Transportation, said at the Detroit Auto Show yesterday.
Buttigieg ran for president in 2020, after serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020. He is also a former naval officer who served as the 19th United States Secretary of Transportation from 2021 to 2025. In May of 2025, he announced that he was considering a 2028 presidential run.
Defending the president’s actions, the White House characterized the worker as “a lunatic… wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage.” The White House went on to say that Trump gave an “appropriate and unambiguous response” to the autoworker.
“President Trump did literally what I believe he’s been doing figuratively for some time, which is give autoworkers the finger,” Buttigieg said. “He’s been a union buster. He has presided over the loss of manufacturing in this country. And then when somebody sees someone as powerful as him come into their workplace, he gives them the old F U.”
According to a story by LGBTQ Nation, the Michigan auto worker, identified as TJ Sabula, said he worries about “political retribution” for “embarrassing Trump in front of his friends.” He has been suspended from his job but says he has “definitely no regrets whatsoever.”
Buttigieg, the 2028 presidential hopeful, currently lives with his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, in Traverse City, Michigan, having moved there from Washington D.C. to be closer to Chasten’s family and raise their twins, Penelope and Gus, in his home state.
The Gayly online. 01/15/2025 @ 1:25 p.m. CST.