Pete Buttigieg Talks 2024 Speculation on 'Tooning Out the News'

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will be “interviewed” by animated character Kylie Weaver on a new episode of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News, which begins a new season Wednesday — and a clip will air Tuesday night on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

In the exclusive clip below, Weaver tells Buttigieg that with President Joe Biden’s approval rating up, there’s no need for the Democratic Party “to rally behind a young, vibrant, gay transformative political figure” as a presidential candidate in 2024.

She wonders, “Where would we even find someone like that?”

Tooning Out the News features a cast of animated characters lampooning top news stories and interviewing real-world guests. The series will air 13 episodes on Wednesday nights following The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. Each episode features three segments that focus on news of the day, the week’s most dominating stories, and special guests. The weekly episodes will feature returning and new characters across the current show segments — “Big News,” “Virtue Signal,” “Hot Take,” and “Inside the Hill.” There will also be special event programming, such as coverage of the 2022 midterm elections, “A Very Special Pre-Recorded 2022 Year in Review,” and more.

The series will be on Comedy Central this season after two seasons on Paramount+. “I am so excited that Comedy Central is the new home of Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News and look forward to CNN trying to fire my anchors before learning it airs on a completely different network,” Colbert said in a press release.

Animated news anchor James Smartwood added, “After leaving CNN in solidarity with Jeffrey Toobin, being terminated from MSNBC for calling for an innocent total no-fly zone over Europe, and getting frog marched out of Fox News for instigating one measly gin-fueled airport brawl, I’m thrilled to bring my talents to the world’s premier journalistic network, Comedy Central, until the instant I receive a call from the Saudi Comedy Channel."

The comedy series is executive produced by Stephen Colbert, RJ Fried, Tim Luecke from Showtime’s Our Cartoon President, Zach Smilovitz, Mike Leech, and Nicole Savini. It is produced by CBS Studios.

The first and second seasons of Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News are available to stream exclusively on Paramount+.

Watch the exclusive clip below.