WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg campaigned Thursday in Florida for Joe Biden.
The former South Bend mayor and Navy veteran was in Viera, Florida, earlier when he hosted a Biden event with retired Major General Steven Lepper.
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Buttigieg was in downtown West Palm Beach at Trinity Park for the event.
The former mayor attacked Trump for allegedly calling members of the military "suckers" and "losers," which the president has denied that he said.
"The president of the United States swears an oath to protect this country from all enemies foreign and domestic, and yet our president (Trump) has referred to those who put everything on the line for that defense as losers, as suckers," Buttigieg said.
He reached out to Republicans who oppose Trump to support and vote for Biden.
"You can either be a John McCain Republican, or you can be a Donald Trump Republican, but you cannot be both. You got to choose right now, and that's why so many John McCain Republicans are saying, 'I'm for Joe Biden this time around,'" he said.
Buttigieg also encouraged everyone to vote and not be complacent about the polls that show Biden is ahead of Trump in most polls.
"We know there are votes still out there … the encouraging poll numbers that we see showing Joe Biden winning, they're great, but they're just numbers until people actually vote," he said.
He was joined by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, State Rep. Matt Willhite, Major General F. Andrew Turley and other community leaders to honor Gold Star families and rally support for Biden.
"West Palm Beach could make the difference, and wouldn't it be nice to have a president that gets up in the morning and thinks about uniting this country, not dividing us. We can't go on for four more years of this chaos. I don't care if you're a lifelong Democrat or Republican or Independent. You don't have to have a deep blue Democrat to know that something's wrong in this country," Buttigieg said.
Biden held a drive-in rally event Thursday in Coconut Creek in Broward County.
