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- Meghan McCain and other politicians condemned the false child abuse allegation made against Pete Buttigieg.
- The Michigan State Police and Children’s Protective Services investigated the anonymous report and quickly determined it was false and politically motivated.
- Buttigieg described the ordeal as one of the darkest periods of his life.
Meghan McCain is one of the people speaking out against the false child abuse allegation that targeted former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“Absolutely horrified at what happened to @PeteButtigieg and his family,” McCain, a former cohost of The View and a daughter of the late Rep. John McCain, wrote on X on Friday. “I am so sick of dirty, cruel politics and am truly deeply upset by the involvement of his children. It is wildly f***ked up. This world has to do better.”
An anonymous report accused Buttigieg of posing a threat to his and his husband’s children, as The New York Times reported. The Michigan State Police and Children’s Protective Services concluded the report was false, according to a statement from a Michigan State Police spokesperson, who added that “false reports are dangerous.”
Absolutely horrified at what happened to @PeteButtigieg and his family. I am so sick of dirty, cruel politics and am truly deeply upset by the involvement of his children. It is wildly fucked up.
This world has to do better.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) June 27, 2026
Buttigieg opened up about the ordeal on Friday in a Substack post titled “A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family,” saying he was furious and wanted to share the details.
The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, wrote that a few days prior, a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at his house, saying an allegation had been made against him and that the allegation concerned his 4-year-old twins. They explained that a forensic interview had been arranged for the twins and that Buttigieg couldn’t be around his children until the interview was complete. And so Buttigieg and his husband had the children stay at their grandparents’ house.
“The twenty-four hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life,” Buttigieg wrote. “I tried to get my head around the idea that I had been accused of something so serious that I couldn’t be alone around my own children, and had consented to have them interviewed by strangers, without my knowing where the accusation had come from or even what it contained.”
He added, “Many times over the years, I have been denounced, yelled at, protested, threatened, and heckled. I’ve been through political attacks in office, death threats in public life, and rocket attacks in war. But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”
The following day, Buttigieg wrote, the officer informed him someone had called CPS and claimed to have spoken to a woman who claimed Buttigieg met her at a conference in Alabama several years prior and told her he’d committed violent crimes. The officer said he believed the report was politically motivated, and the CPS worker said she had not found anything to substantiate the allegation, Buttigieg recalled.
And even though he and his husband, Chasten, have reunited with their kids, Buttigieg said he worried about “any unseen effects” the ordeal had on their family. “Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry about the harm it has done,” he explained.
Other politicians have denounced the false allegations. “This is so disgusting and beyond the pale,” California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X. “Families should be off limits. Thinking of you, Chasten, and your children.”
Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta wrote, “Absolutely sick and beyond the pale. I’m so sorry this happened to your family, @PeteButtigieg & @Chasten.”
And U.S. Representative Hillary Scholten wrote, “What happened to @PeteButtigieg and his family is deeply disturbing and wrong. No family should have to experience this, and false reports only undermine the work of protecting children who truly need help. Sending my love and prayers to Pete, @Chasten, and their children, and I fervently pledge to get politics off this dangerous path.”