Former president Barack Hussein Obama reportedly said that former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg was too “gay” and too “short” to be a serious presidential contender during the midst of the 2020 presidential race.

Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020 and surprisingly won the Iowa caucus, is now the Transportation Secretary under President-imposed Joe Biden. He is considered a rising star in the Democrat Party due to his homosexual lifestyle, which includes being gay married to a husband, but Obama is apparently a doubter.

Obama reportedly made his remarks while addressing a group of black Democrat donors in Oct. 2019 as he was attempting to exert his influence over the process. The revelation comes from a new book authored by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and NBC’s Jonathan Allen titled, Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency.

At the time, Obama was apparently supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for president. The excerpt from the book, which includes various pot shots made by Obama toward Buttigieg, reads as follows:

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When he was asked to return to the original question on his advice, Obama said he liked Buttigieg, a rising talent who’d worked on his own campaign. But despite his affinity for the South Bend mayor, he rattled off a list of reasons why Buttigieg couldn’t win. 

“He’s thirty- eight,” Obama said, pausing for dramatic effect, “but he looks thirty.” The audience laughed. Obama was on a roll, using the tone of light ridicule he some-times pointed at himself — ” big ears” and “a funny name,” he’d said so many times before. Now, it was directed at Buttigieg. “He’s the mayor of a small town,” the former president continued. “He’s gay,” Obama said, “and he’s short.” More laughter. 

Only months earlier, Buttigieg had sat in Obama’s postpresidential office in Washington seeking counsel on how to maintain equanimity in the face of homophobia on the campaign trail. Now, behind his back, Obama was riffing on him to some of the wealthiest Black men in America at a time when Buttigieg had been dubbed “Mayo Pete” by critics who believed he couldn’t connect with African American voters.

It goes without saying that any conservative who made similar remarks would be pilloried by the fake news media. Obama will get a pass, although the comments may make the former president’s relationship with the former mayor strained as Buttigieg climbs up the political ladder undeservedly due solely to identity politics.