The White House has decided to take offense over a joke that former Vice President Mike Pence made about Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg taking parental leave when his adoptive twins were born prematurely.

(Video Credit: WTHR)

“Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets post-partum depression,” Pence allegedly joked at the annual Gridiron Club Dinner on Saturday, causing a leftist meltdown.

Buttigieg was heavily criticized for taking at least three months of paid leave in 2021 while President Biden was trying to pass his infrastructure bill on Capitol Hill. At the same time, the supply chain at US ports was breaking down as well.

At that same event, Pence is said to have warned that “history will hold Donald Trump accountable” for January 6th. Pence also reportedly ripped the former president for endangering his family that day and tore into Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for allegedly downplaying the protest.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said, according to the Associated Press. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

The Pence team sat around and tried to come up with the best way to completely alienate anyone who might actually vote in a Republican Party primary. They need to check their watches. It’s 2023. https://t.co/bHesCaaWXC

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 14, 2023

“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace,” the former vice president commented. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.”

“I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible,” Pence stated. “Which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.”

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Pence’s joke about Buttigieg’s parental leave “homophobic” and “offensive” in an interview with the Washington Blade, condemning his purported comments.

“The former vice president’s homophobic joke about Secretary Buttigieg was offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline. He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect,” Jean-Pierre demanded.

In response to Pence’s jest, Chasten Buttigieg, the transportation secretary’s husband, shared a photo of him holding their premature baby. Buttigieg and his husband welcomed twins Joseph August (called Gus) and Penelope Rose in August of 2021.

“An honest question for you, @Mike_Pence, after your attempted joke this weekend. If your grandchild was born prematurely and placed on a ventilator at two months old – their tiny fingers wrapped around yours as the monitors beep in the background – where would you be?” Chasten Buttigieg wrote on Twitter.

An honest question for you, @Mike_Pence, after your attempted joke this weekend. If your grandchild was born prematurely and placed on a ventilator at two months old – their tiny fingers wrapped around yours as the monitors beep in the background – where would you be? pic.twitter.com/pCWvl8pb5N

— Chasten Glezman Buttigieg (@Chasten) March 13, 2023

Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, called the remarks from the left “faux outrage.”

“The Biden administration should spare America the faux outrage. The hypocrisy is especially rich considering their own Secretary of State Antony Blinken joked that he yearned for ‘the old days’ when ‘Jews did all the work,'” Short quipped on Twitter.

“The White House would be wise to focus less on placating the woke police and focus more on bank failures, planes nearly colliding in mid-air, train derailments, and the continued supply chain crisis,” he asserted.

The White House would be wise to focus less on placating the woke police and focus more on bank failures, planes nearly colliding in mid-air, train derailments, and the continued supply chain crisis.

— Marc Short (@marctshort) March 13, 2023

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