Pete Buttigieg enters the manosphere in marathon Flagrant podcast appearance

Pete Buttigieg just stepped into the most chaotic bro zone on the internet — and didn’t flinch. And he didn’t need to change his vocabulary to do it.

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The former transportation secretary has briefed generals, grilled CEOs, and testified before Congress. But in his latest public appearance, he proved just as fluent in barbershop banter and locker-room one-liners as he is in public policy.

In a nearly three-hour appearance on Flagrant—the bro-y, wildly popular podcast hosted by comedians Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, and crew—Buttigieg showed that a Harvard grad, Rhodes Scholar, former mayor, and former presidential candidate can chop it up with some of YouTube’s biggest comedy bros without sounding rehearsed, robotic, or condescending.

Related: Pete Buttigieg — bearded and blunt — calls out Donald Trump’s tariff chaos: ‘This is people’s lives’

Amid rising concern within the Democratic Party about its growing disconnect with male voters — particularly younger men — the conversation doubled as a political case study: What does it look like when a high-profile Democrat engages the “manosphere” not with disdain, but on its own turf, and its own terms?

According to the Associated Press VoteCast survey, 56 percent of young men voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, while only 40 percent of young women did—a staggering 16-point gender gap, the largest in over two decades. Analysts have documented a broad political decoupling between young men and women, reflecting stark divides in education, trust, and social belonging.

The episode opened with jokes about the latest season of The White Lotus before veering into more unfiltered territory: “white boy fun” (straight men pretending to be gay to troll each other), being closeted in the military, raising Black children as a white gay dad, and the existential cost of political ambition.

When asked if he encountered “white boy fun” while serving in the Navy, Buttigieg didn’t flinch. “That’s half of middle school humor,” he deadpanned, disarming the setup with a grin. When Schulz pushed further—had he ever been on the receiving end of those jokes while closeted — Buttigieg acknowledged, “Not really, no. But I know that that happens to a lot of people… where there’s this assumption — just one of the few minorities that it’s not obvious to everybody whether you’re part of that minority unless you decide to tell people.”

Schulz and his co-hosts are known for pushing the boundaries of political correctness, often under the banner of satire or cultural commentary. Asked if he knew what a “gold star gay” or “platinum gay” was — gay men who’ve never had sex with a woman, with platinum defined by literally being born through a C-section — Buttigieg laughed. “Chasten tried to explain this to me once,” he said. “I’m not the best representative of my people. No, I’m not.”

Buttigieg also spoke about raising adopted twins, who are Black, with his husband, Chasten. “We were in what’s called a surprise adoption scenario,” he explained. “We didn’t know anything about the racial identity of the kids until they started to look mixed race, which they are.”

He talked about learning to care for his daughter’s hair and how Black parents had reached out, sometimes unsolicited, to offer guidance. “Lots of advice,” he said, noting his unfamiliarity with care routines. “Obviously, I’m a low-maintenance kind of guy,” Buttigieg, sporting a newly-grown beard, laughed before describing their multistep routine involving conditioners and essential oils. “You’re always asking yourself, how can I be a good dad for kids who have a different racial identity than I do?”

He went on: “There are circumstances where there’s nothing I can do to help them navigate that. And I need to connect them up to mentors and people in their lives.” Buttigieg added, “This is not a colorblind society. And their lives will be affected in some way by their racial identity—just as all of ours are.”

He also brought policy depth, speaking plainly on complex topics. On inequality, he said, “No republic has ever survived this level of inequality for long and remained a republic.” He argued that the U.S. should consider giving citizens “a dividend” from the massive value being created by artificial intelligence, likening it to a modern-day social contract for a digital economy built on taxpayer-funded research. “Why shouldn’t we all get a share?”

On the risks of unchecked corporate consolidation, he was blunt: “These mega-mega-billionaires consolidating their power—it’s the same thing as the president consolidating his.” And on taxing corporate profits: “It can’t just be pretty please,” he said, calling for policy tools to ensure wealth created by American workers also benefits them. “We have to be ready to do it through policy.”

As the conversation turned to international competition, particularly with China, Buttigieg argued that clean tech and AI development are not just environmental or commercial issues but strategic imperatives. “China’s making big bets on EVs,” he said. “We should be making those here.” He pointed to the GM battery factory now being built in his hometown of South Bend as an example of the administration’s commitment. “That is bigger than any manufacturing investment that happened there in my entire life.”

He warned that if the U.S. doesn’t invest in education, infrastructure, and emerging technology, “we’re just scrapping for advantage.” Still, he rejected the Trump-era “America First” approach. “If it’s America first, the way they’re doing it, I think it means America alone.”

Buttigieg also took aim at the performative cruelty of certain Trump-era immigration policies, specifically referencing the deportation of migrants to Salvadoran prisons, a case that has recently drawn national attention. “Most people would agree with the idea that violent criminals shouldn’t be here,” he said. “But then other things are happening. They take some guy and just send him by mistake to a Salvadoran prison, which is obviously... a huge, huge problem morally and policy-wise.”

He linked that controversy to a larger trend in media and political attention cycles. “When we did something, when we got a bridge or a road built... it was incredibly hard to get attention,” he said. “The projects that got the most coverage were the ones where we caught a Republican congressman trying to take credit for the project after they voted against it.” He cited Rep. Nancy Mace as an example, referencing her attempt to claim credit for a Charleston transit project she had previously opposed.

The takeaway, Buttigieg said, is that Democrats shouldn’t shy away from naming bad actors or engaging in public controversy to tell the full story. “Part of what I think Bernie and AOC are doing quite well is they’re not afraid of some controversy... of naming bad guys.”

In one moment, he described how coming out to his parents felt. “Even when it’s not totally rational,” he said, “telling my parents was not easy. And I had it way easier than most people. My parents were very loving and socially liberal.”

Asked when he knew, he was blunt. “I really, really wanted to not be gay,” he said. “Especially growing up in Indiana.” He dated women—“a string of amazing women,” he said — but eventually realized it wasn’t fair to them or to himself. “You’re wasting their time and your own.”

Buttigieg said it wasn’t until he confided in a close friend over beers that the fog began to lift. “That was the best way I could come out to myself,” he said. “If I’ve just told even one person, then it’s kind of real.”

When the hosts shifted toward politics, Buttigieg, who passed up the opportunity to run for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate or governor’s seat, was candid about the sacrifices of public service. “They didn’t sign up for this,” he said of his husband and their children. “It’s hard enough on Chasten — he’s like an adult — but he didn’t exactly sign up for this either… That much more so for little kids.”

“One of the worst things about politics is how little regard it shows for the families of people in public service,” he added. “Even when somebody says they want to spend more time with their family, that’s immediately taken as code for ‘I did something wrong.’ We should celebrate that.”

And while Buttigieg isn’t currently running for anything, he left the door open: “If you’re going to ask people to go through all that, it better be because there’s something more important than winning. There are things that are more important than running.”

Watch Pete Buttigieg with the guys of Flagrant below.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.