Buttigieg defends appearing on Fox News: Many Americans don’t hear Dems’ message

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg defended his decision to take part in a Fox News town hall on Sunday and warned Democrats that many voters may not hear the party’s message if candidates do not speak out in such venues. 

“There are a lot of Americans who my party can’t blame if they are ignoring our message because they will never hear it if we don’t go on and talk about it,” Buttigieg told host Chris Wallace. 

{mosads}“That’s why whether it’s going into the viewership of Fox News or geographically it’s going into places where Democrats haven’t been seen much, I think we got to find people where they are, not change our values, but update our vocabulary so we’re truly connecting with Americans from coast to coast,” he continued. 

The Democratic National Committee announced earlier this year that Fox News would not be hosting any of its 2020 primary debates, and the party’s White House contenders have taken a mixed approach to dealing with the conservative network.

Buttigieg did not miss an opportunity to take a shot at two of Fox News’s prominent opinion hosts, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. 

“I get where that’s coming from, especially when you see what’s going with some of the opinion hosts on this network,” he said, referring to those who disagreed with him for appearing on Fox News. “When you get Tucker Carlson saying that immigrants make America dirty, when you got Laura Ingraham comparing detention centers with children in cages to summer camps. Summer camps?”

Despite the skepticism on the party level, Buttigieg is far from the only Democratic White House hopeful to appear on Fox News.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took part in a town hall on the network last month that brought in more than 2.55 million viewers.

However, Sanders’s progressive colleague and primary opponent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced last week she would not partake in a forum on the network, calling the news organization “a hate for profit machine.” 

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has also reportedly walked away from potential opportunities with Fox News. An aide to Harris’s campaign told The Hill that the network has “reached out, but we haven’t entertained it.”