Pete Buttigieg is planning a secret presidential run as evidenced by his new beard and recent shunning of pronouns, the hosts of Fox & Friends have claimed.
The stars of the morning show made the assertion while rattling off names of Democrats they say could muster up a White House bid come 2028 - after a prominent progressive appeared to obliquely mention one last week.
Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett touted 'one specific candidate' as a strong possibility during a podcast appearance Friday, insisting 'all the donors are lining up behind that [person].'
'I can tell, and I tell you, it’s not a black person, nor a woman?' she added, following the failures of Hillary Clinton and Kalama Harris.
This left the Fox & Friends hosts to speculate as to whom Crockett had been referring to, with names like Gavin Newsom, JD Pritzker, and Tim Walz making the list of suspects.
'Gov. Beshear maybe?' asked Brian Kilmeade, paving the way for another possibility from Ainsley Earhardt.
'Pete Buttigieg?' she asked, before being met with a reaction from her cohosts that appeared to indicate they believed she was onto something.
'Pete Buttigieg, interesting,' Kilmeade echoed, before jokingly honing in on the two pieces of criteria he said proved her point.
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The hosts of Fox & Friends rattled off an array of Democrats they say could muster up a White House run on Monday
However, it was the mention of a 'mystery' candidate that captured the attention of the curvy couch, after Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett this week touted 'one specific candidate' - a white male - supposedly being floated by her party's donors
'He just took his pronouns down recently,' he joked - after which Lawrence Jones observed the former transportation secretary 'has a beard now.'
'Those are the two things necessary to run a country,' Kilmeade then quipped, lampooning the liberal's apparent rebrand in the process.
A few days before, on Friday, SiriusXM host Clay Cane shared the clip of Crockett that ignited the conversation.
It saw her talk up the mystery man supposedly being floated by her party as the next prospective president.
"It is this fear that the people within the party, within the primary system, will have about voting for a woman because every time we voted for a woman, we’ve lost, so far,' she said in the clip posted to Instagram.
'And I think that that’s a natural fear because we just want to win.
"There’s a lot of people that are like, ‘You know what? 'Let’s go find the safest White boy we can find,’" Crockett continued, at this point adding, 'I had a donor on the phone with me telling me that all the donors are lining up behind that candidate.
As she spoke, Crockett repeatedly referred to Democratic donors as "they" - a potential clue the hosts were quick to point out perhaps indicated she was speaking about those who previously backed former President Joe Biden.
The conversations eventually came to Pete Buttigieg, who, after growing a beard and pulling his preferred pronouns from his social media profiles is ready 'to run a country,' Brien Kilmeade cracked sarcastically
Buttigieg, meanwhile, has ramped up podcast appearances recently amid rumors he may run for president, sporting a more gruff appearance while doing so.
Late last month, Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy honed in on this while questioning the Democrats' masculinity, months after her husband, Sean Duffy, assumed his place in the federal government.
Buttigieg, who is gay, had just appeared on the MAGA-friendly 'Flagrant' podcast.
Days before, he told Jon Stewart during a separate podcast appearance that 'he's had enough of the chaos' caused by the commander-in-chief.
Democrats, moreover, are still picking up the proverbial pieces left by their loss in the presidential election, fielding figures like Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and even Kamala Harris as possibilities for 2028.
As of Monday, no clear frontrunner has emerged - despite Crockett's comments. They came during SiriusXM 'Urban View' town hall Friday, which is set to air Thursday.
