Chasten Buttigieg: ‘I hope to inspire my kids’ as much as Tim Walz does

Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, said Thursday he hopes to inspire his children as much as Tim Walz inspires his own after the Minnesota governor’s emotional speech the night before accepting the Democratic vice presidential nomination.

“I hope to inspire my kids so much that when they see me speak of the dreams and passion I have for my country they are moved to tears like Gus Walz was,” Chasten Buttigieg wrote on social media platform X, referring to the governor’s 17-year-old son.

“@Tim_Walz has dedicated his life to service and has clearly exceeded in being an excellent, supportive, and loving father every step of the way. We should all be so lucky to know a love like that,” he continued.

Gus Walz, standing with his mother Gwen and sister Hope, had tears streaming down his face as he cheered on his father at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday. He stood up and pumped his fist when his father began to speak about the family’s fertility struggles.

“Gus, Hope and Gwen, you are my entire world and I love you,” Walz said, prompting his 17-year-old to jump up.

“That’s my dad!” Gus Walz said.

Gus’s reaction won over social media Wednesday night, as videos of him cheering on his father circulated on numerous platforms.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki posted on X, “Team Gus Walz,” while former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said, “Tim Walz was 100 percent pitch perfect, grand slam, touchdown in every possible way. And yet somehow Gus Walz was even better.”

In his own speech at the convention on Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg hit back at GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance over the Ohio senator’s previous remarks about the “childless” and his comment that people without children have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.”

“When I deployed to Afghanistan, I didn’t have kids then. Many of the men and women who went outside the wire with me didn’t have kids either,” Buttigieg said. “But let me tell you, our commitment to the future of this country was pretty damn physical.”

He and Chasten announced in September 2021 that they had welcomed twins into their family.