CBS' Margaret Brennan confronts Pete Buttigieg over Joe Biden's struggling EV push

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: CBS anchor Margaret Brennen confronted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg over the current federal administration's aggressive yet seemingly not fruitful push towards electronic vehicles (EV) on Sunday, May 26 episode of 'Face the Nation.'

The criticism faced by Buttigieg was in line with the complaints leveled against President Joe Biden by former President Donald Trump, who claimed that the incumbent was spending billions of federal dollars on an unpopular car.

"You notice he’s trying to save the electric vehicle but not the gas-powered which is the vehicle everybody wants. They’re going crazy with the electric car, costing us a fortune. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing a car nobody wants and nobody is ever going to buy," stated the presumptive GOP nominee of his Democratic rival.

Pete Buttigieg's response to the criticism

During the Sunday interview, host Brennan told Buttigieg that Trump was not wrong about the purchase of EVs. A Gallup poll conducted in April showed that the interest in owning an EV among Americans was decreasing, with only 9% "seriously considering" buying one, reported Fox News.

The figures were at odds with the Biden administration's goal of having half of all cars sold in the United States to be electronic vehicles by 2030.

The Transportation Secretary insisted that Trump was wrong, but faced pushback from Brenner, who said, "He's not. Of the 4 million vehicles purchased, 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S. Market. It’s up like 2%."

"Every single year more Americans buy EVs than the year before," replied Buttigieg in his defense.

Later in the interview, Brennan brought up the lack of sufficient EV charging stations in the country, asking, "The Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021. Why isn’t that happening more quickly?"

"So the president’s goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade. Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than plugging a small device into the ground. There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states, every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work," replied Buttigieg.

As the host interjected, "Seven or eight though?" Buttigieg added, "Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers. The very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. Again, that’s the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come. The reason that we’re investing federal dollars is to fill in some of the gaps in areas where it is not yet profitable for the private sector to do it. Again, the majority of charging will happen at home."

Internet calls out Pete Buttigieg over his comments

"I’m glad she pushed back. Buttigieg has no clue what he’s talking about and is not qualified for his position," a user commented on the news over the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

"Pete has presided over more train, plane, and port disasters than all his predecessors combined despite a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure bill. He's probably one of Biden's biggest liabilities, and that's saying a lot," wrote another.

"7 billion for 8 charging stations? WTF?" inquired one user.

"Wow. Coming from CBS, you know things are bad. @PeteButtigieg is an awful transportation secretary. Cannot wait until he is replaced," noted a user.

"If EV's were such a great deal, blue states wouldn't need to mandate them. Just sayin," shared another.

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