Pete Buttigieg Perfectly Skewers Trump’s So-Called “Mandate”

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had a cheeky take on Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

“We won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country 2,700 to 525—on a map that reads almost completely red for Republican,” Trump told both chambers Tuesday night, using his win to claim that he had been given a “mandate” by the country to radically reimagine the federal government.

But the former South Bend mayor couldn’t help himself from adding a dash of spice to Trump’s reminder, offering to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that the president may have won, but only by a historically tiny margin.

“Despite what you heard tonight, he came in with just under 50 percent of the vote,” Buttigieg said. “He won, I’m not disputing that. But it was the smallest popular vote margin since Nixon.

“I wonder how he feels about something that important being that small in his case,” Buttigieg mused with a smirk. “And he has lost support from there.”

“To be smaller than Tricky Dick is, uh—gives one pause, I would say,” Colbert quipped back.

A CNN Poll released this week found that just 39 percent of Americans felt the country was moving in the right direction, as opposed to 45 percent who believed it was moving in the wrong direction.

Even Republicans don’t seem to believe in the “mandate” decree coming from the White House. In Tennessee over the weekend, an angry town hall before Representative Diana Harshbarger screamed, “No!” when the Republican lawmaker asked if there had been a “mandate to the president from the American people,” who she claimed “overwhelmingly” voted Trump in.

“We’re giving the billionaires tax cuts!” a man shouted at Harshbarger.

Donald Trump is already backing off some of his tariffs only one day after they went into effect.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration granted a one-month exception to U.S. automobile companies from the 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada. The change came after the president spoke with CEOs of the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. Trump reportedly told the auto executives that they should move their production to the United States, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“We spoke with the Big Three auto dealers,” Trump said in a statement read by Leavitt. “We are going to give a one-month exemption on any autos coming through USMCA,” he added, referring to the free trade agreement between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Leavitt told reporters that Trump is open to additional exemptions, although none are planned at this time.

Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China on Tuesday, prompting the stock market to plummet and Mexican, Canadian, and Chinese leaders to announce retaliatory tariffs. The premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, told the Associated Press that the auto industry in Canada and the U.S. could only last 10 days before assembly lines would start to shut down.

“People are going to lose their jobs,” Doug Ford said.

The exemption follows remarks by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Wednesday morning on Bloomberg Television that Trump would update his tariff plans later in the day.

“There are going to be tariffs, let’s be clear,” Lutnick said. “But what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that can maybe—maybe—he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2.”

Trump’s tariffs are expected to raise the prices of numerous goods in the U.S. aside from automobiles, including groceries, electronics, and farm equipment. They also will cause negative ripple effects for the American public, including higher utility bills, partly due to Ford’s threats to cut off electricity to the United States.

It remains to be seen if there will be more carve-outs for Trump’s tariffs, although a rapidly worsening economy could force the president’s hand. What Trump’s endgame is for his very unwise economic plans is not clear, but in the meantime, the American taxpayer will bear the brunt of his folly.

In just a handful of weeks, Donald Trump’s nationalist policies and aggressive tariffs have rattled Canada’s economy, the American stock market, and, with it, the two nations’ long-standing alliance.

But Trump’s most recent approach to negotiating with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau amid the spontaneous trade war has taken a hard turn, more closely resembling catty high school gossip than legitimate foreign policy.

“Justin Trudeau, of Canada, called me to ask what could be done about Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday. “I told him that many people have died from Fentanyl that came through the Borders of Canada and Mexico, and nothing has convinced me that it has stopped.”

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough.’ The call ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner!” Trump continued. “He was unable to tell me when the Canadian Election is taking place, which made me curious, like, what’s going on here? I then realized he is trying to use this issue to stay in power. Good luck Justin!”

That lackadaisical response came on the heels of a harrowing address given Tuesday by Trudeau, in which the Canadian leader accused Trump of attempting to undermine Canada’s economy in order to “annex” it as America’s fifty-first state. He also urged Americans to look in the mirror and consider if they’re comfortable tossing the nation’s strongest Western alliances to effectively become Russia’s puppet.

Trump “feels strongly that it would be very beneficial for the Canadian people to be the fifty-first state of the United States. They wouldn’t be paying for these tariffs, and they’d have much lower taxes if they became a part of our great country,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday.

The president’s controversial tariffs went into effect first thing Tuesday, imposing 25 percent levies on Canada and Mexico as well as a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods. In return, Canada and China slapped the U.S. with equal tariffs, while Mexico promised to do the same, with further details to come Sunday. Meanwhile, the spontaneously unpaused levies immediately followed reports that Trump had directed administration officials to draft a proposal that would lift sanctions on Russia.

“I can tell you that every country is very, very aware that if the American government is willing to do this to their own closest ally, neighbor, and friend,” Trudeau said Tuesday. “Then everyone is vulnerable to a trade war.”

Less than a day after the tariffs went into effect, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox Business that they could be undone as soon as Thursday.

“Both the Canadians and Mexicans were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick told the network, with regard to fentanyl flows into the U.S. “So I think [Trump] is going to work something out with them.”

The Department of Government Efficiency’s slashing of the federal workforce is disproportionately hurting veterans, and the damage is only going to get worse.

According to a March 4 memo first obtained by Government Executive, the Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to lay off as many as 83,000 employees. The Trump administration wants the department to get its workforce back to 2019 levels, when the VA employed 399,957 people and before millions of veterans became eligible for greater care. More than one in four VA employees are veterans.

The “aggressive” cuts will “resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure,” VA chief of staff Christopher Syrek wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees on Tuesday.

The department is expected to deliver its plans to “increase workforce efficiency” to the Office of Personnel Management by April 14.

Employment at the VA increased significantly under Biden with the passing of the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxins and was the result of years’ worth of advocacy from various veteran organizations.

DOGE couldn’t care less. The pseudo-agency’s plan to fire 17 percent of the VA’s workforce is just the latest move in its assault on veterans and, more broadly, the federal government. Last month, DOGE laid off 2,400 VA employees and more than 6,000 veterans from other federal agencies.

DOGE also sought to terminate 875 affected contracts at the VA, which would significantly harm veterans’ access to health care services. The cuts have been temporarily suspended, but will likely resurface.

Florida’s attorney general has launched an “active criminal investigation” into manosphere bigot Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan, who arrived in the country just last week at Donald Trump’s behest.

The brothers returned to the U.S. from Romania, where they still face rape and human trafficking charges, after the Trump administration sought the return of their passports, opposing a court order requiring them to remain in the European nation while the investigation continued.

Now that the dual British-American citizens have returned stateside, they’ve found themselves the subject of yet another criminal investigation for alleged sex crimes.

“These guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying upon women around the world,” Attorney General James Uthmeier said Tuesday.

“Many of these victims are coming forward, some of them minors—people can spin or defend however they want, but in Florida, this type of behavior is viewed as atrocious. We’re not going to accept it,” Uthmeier said. “They chose to come here and set their feet down in this state, and we’re going to pursue every tool we have within our legal authority to hold them accountable.”

Uthemeier announced the investigation in a post on X Tuesday, saying his office had conducted a “preliminary inquiry” into the brothers. “Based on a thorough review of the evidence, I’ve directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas in the now-active criminal investigation into the Tate brothers,” he wrote.

Andrew Tate posted on X dozens of times between Tuesday and Wednesday, claiming his innocence and attacking Uthmeier and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appointed the attorney general.

“This isn’t the America I know. This is a sad sad day for America,” Tate wrote in one post Tuesday, describing the investigation as “absolute communism.”

Last week, Andrew Tate denied all wrongdoing. “We’ve no criminal record anywhere on the planet ever,” he said.

That claim is still pending, however, as the brothers remain under investigation in Romania. Last year, a Romanian court ruled that after those court proceedings finished, the brothers could then be extradited to the U.K. to face additional charges of sex crimes.

Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and professional misogynist, is a central figure in the manosphere of contemptible internet chauvinists, a group of right-wing shills Trump utilized in his run for the presidency—and now intends to thank in kind.