What’s the Deal With That Pete Buttigieg Breastfeeding Photo? Let’s Head to the Debunker

In September 2021, then Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced via a post on X that he and his husband were fathers. "Chasten and I are beyond thankful for all the kind wishes since first sharing the news that we’re becoming parents," he wrote, alongside the two of them holding their twins. "We are delighted to welcome Penelope Rose and Joseph August Buttigieg to our family."

Unfortunately, the twins were hospitalized and put on oxygen after getting sick with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), while Pete was on paternity leave. Said leave was cleared by his boss, former President Joe Biden. This resulted in a slew of snide comments from people like former Vice President Mike Pence and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The internet also had a field day as photos of Pete breastfeeding circulated online. Were they fake? Here's what we know.

In the wake of the bizarre reactions to Pete's paternity leave, one picture started gaining traction on social media. The since-deleted image was originally posted by Gabe Whitley, a Republican politician running for state representative in Indiana. In it, Pete is sitting on a couch wearing a breastfeeding device for men. A baby is on his lap, using the device. The caption read, "This is the definition of pedophilia. Sickening!!!" (To be clear, that is not the definition of pedophilia.)

In a post-AI world where it is difficult to tell what is real and what is not, this image is laughably doctored. Anyone with a passing knowledge of how the human body works can clearly see that Pete's head was photoshopped onto an existing picture. The original photo is an advertisement for a breastfeeding system known as the Father’s Nursing Assistant, which was developed in Japan by a tech the tech company Dentsu, per Motherly.

In March 2023, Mike Pence was at the annual Gridiron Dinner for journalists and politicians in Washington, D.C., where he made a joke about Pete's paternity leave. At that point, it had been two years since he took time off, but Mike still had something he needed to get off his chest. "Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression," he said. When asked about it later, Mike said Pete just can't take a joke.

While guesting on the Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson podcast, Pete fired back at Mike for ridiculing him while his newborn babies were sick. He found it odd that someone like Mike, who frequently spoke about family values, would use his family's difficult moment as political fodder. That put things into perspective for Pete who said, "When you're face-to-face with a life-or-death struggle involving a child and that comes out OK, it becomes less important to you that the political game comes out OK."

If pressed to choose between politics and the health of his family, Pete said the choice was easy. "The things you want and need most to work out is the wellbeing of your family and it allows you to remember that so much of the rest is noise."