Biden expected to nominate Pete Buttigieg to be transportation secretary
Editor's note: Pete Buttigieg has been confirmed as President-elect Joe Biden's transportation secretary. Read the latest update here. Our original story appears below.
Washington — President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce former South Bend Mayor and primary opponent Pete Buttigieg as his nominee to helm the Department of Transportation, multiple sources confirmed to CBS News.
Buttigieg, 38, rose to prominence among the crowded field of Democratic candidates vying for the party's presidential nomination, placing first in the Iowa caucuses and second in the New Hampshire primary. The former mayor suspended his presidential campaign in March just before Super Tuesday, and threw his support behind Mr. Biden before primary voters went to the polls on March 4.
After receiving Buttigieg's endorsement, the president-elect compared his onetime rival to his late son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015.
"I warned Pete that if I were lucky enough to get the nomination, that I would be asking him to join. I would be asking him to be involved in this process because there are a generation of leaders Pete's age, like my son, Beau, who have unlimited potential. Unlimited potential," Mr. Biden said in March. "And I look over at Pete during the debates, and I'd think... I think, you know... that's a Beau because he has such enormous character, such intellectual capacity, and such a commitment to other people."
During the Democratic primaries, Buttigieg, the youngest candidate in the field, pitched himself as a Washington outsider who wanted to get "Washington to run a little more like our best-run cities and towns than the other way around." As mayor of South Bend, Buttigieg led Indiana's fourth largest city.
If confirmed by the Senate, Buttigieg would be the first Senate-approved cabinet official who identifies as gay. He would take the lead of an agency with more than 55,000 employees and a budget of more than $85 billion that is responsible for the nation's infrastructure and ensuring the safety of the airways.
Mr. Biden has begun to shape his Cabinet and his White House in the weeks since the election, announcing the people who will make up his national security, foreign policy, economic and health teams. The president-elect has revealed who he will nominate to lead the Departments of Treasury, State, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs.
He has yet to reveal his pick for attorney general, though more announcements are expected in the coming weeks.