Presidential hopefuls Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg exchanged shots over the Minnesota senator forgetting the Mexican president’s name in a recent interview — with Klobuchar asking if Buttigieg was saying she’s “dumb.”
One of the moderators asked Klobuchar about the embarrassing misstep from last Thursday in an interview with Spanish-language station Telemundo where she said “no” when asked who the Mexican president is.
“I said I made an error,” Klobuchar explained on stage, chalking the lapse to “momentary forgetfulness.”
She added: “I think having a president that maybe is humble and is able to admit that here and there maybe wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
Buttigieg then jumped in, noting Klobuchar is staking her candidacy on her “Washington experience.”
“You’re on the committee that oversees border security. You’re on the committee that does trade. You’re literally in the part of the committee that’s overseeing these things,” said Buttigieg.
Klobuchar retorted: “Are you trying to say I’m dumb? Are you mocking me here, Pete? I said I made an error. People sometimes forget names.”
Soon after, Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined the fray to back Klobuchar.
“This is not right,” said Warren. “I understand that she forgot a name. It happens, it happens to everyone on this stage.”
Before the candidates moved onto the next question, former Vice President Joe Biden was able to sneak in his point on the matter.
“I’m the only one who knows this man and met with him,” Biden said of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.