Buttigieg praises Obama after reporter acknowledges misquoting candidate
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., on Monday hailed Barack Obama’s legacy after a journalist acknowledged misquoting the Democratic White House contender as making a statement critical of the former president’s time in office.
Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times tweeted Monday morning that a line in his Sunday story on Buttigieg’s campaign, in which the candidate referred to the “failures of the Obama era,” was erroneously reported.
“That’s an inaccurate quote — the result of transcribing a noisy recording at a loud rally. His exact words were ‘failures of the old normal,’” Halper wrote.
“I deeply regret the mistake[.] When we make errors we own them. This one really hurts because it went viral,” he continued, going on to post Buttigieg’s full remarks, corrected.
Buttigieg replied to Halper’s messages less than an hour later, tweeting that he appreciated “this reporter’s swift and honest correction of a misquote on my views of” the Obama presidency.
“From health care to DADT repeal to the rescue of the auto industry, my appreciation of the great leadership of Barack Obama comes from a very personal place,” he wrote.
Lis Smith, a senior communications adviser on the Buttigieg campaign, also weighed in on the correction Monday, praising her boss' response.
“Pete is unfailingly gracious- even to those who misquote and attack him in bad faith. This is what a President looks like,” she tweeted.
Buttigieg addressed the controversy again Monday in an interview with NBC News, referencing President Donald Trump’s frequent broadsides against members of the press.
“I just appreciate that the misquote was corrected,” he said. “You know, the reality is, despite what this president says, journalists take their obligation very seriously to make sure everything they print is accurate, and you saw that in how quickly that correction took place.”
The openly gay mayor, who previously served in Afghanistan as a Navy intelligence officer, also cited Obama’s signing of legislation in 2010 that ended “don't ask, don't tell” as one of the reasons for his support of the previous administration.
“The achievements of the Obama administration affected me personally in many ways, including the ability to serve openly, and I'm an admirer of President Obama,” Buttigieg said. “I also believe this election, more than ever, is about the future.”
The initial misquote by Halper attracted significant attention on social media in the hours since his story published, with liberal Twitter users interpreting the inaccurate comment as a shocking rebuke of the most recent Democratic president.
Former Housing Secretary Julián Castro, who is also competing for the party’s nomination in 2020, had seized on the quote to bludgeon Buttigieg online, but retracted his attack Monday.
“I have deleted a tweet responding to a quote from @PeteButtigieg that a reporter now recognizes is inaccurate,” he tweeted. “The reporter has now issued a correction, and I regret that the original was spread widely.”
Smith on Monday tweeted out the transcript and audio of the questioning related to the error, and applauded the campaign’s “hard-working staff that work to document and transcribe all those recordings” between the candidate and reporters.
“To everyone who used one quote to jump all over @PeteButtigieg, I look forward to your corrections,” she wrote.
