Former 2020 Candidate Pete Buttigieg Is Guest-Hosting Jimmy Kimmel's Show: 'It's Going to Be Fun'
Former Indiana mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg will be back on TV on Thursday, but not because he’ll be speaking at a rally or stumping on the trail.
Instead, he’ll be guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Buttigieg, 38, confirmed the news during an interview on Today on Monday morning, when he also said he’ll be sitting down with Patrick Stewart as a guest on Kimmel’s show.
“We’re really excited for that, lining up a great slate of guests,” he told Today‘s Craig Melvin.
And, yes, that means Buttigieg will be doing a standard late-night monologue — though no word yet on the jokes he’ll tell.
“Hopefully some funnier minds than mine will be doing some writing for that,” he said on Today. “But I think it’s going to be fun. The thing about running a presidential campaign is you have been focused on one thing and one thing only. It’s nice to be able to zoom out and just come back at life.”
Kimmel, 52, tweeted that Buttigieg would be filling in for him while he’s busy hosting the return of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
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Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images; Randy Holmes/Getty Images Pete Buttigieg (left) and Jimmy Kimmel
Buttigieg, a Navy veteran who was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, until January, was the breakout star of the 2020 campaign cycle. The first openly gay major presidential candidate, he vaulted in a year from unknown to TIME cover star and history-making Iowa caucus winner.
“I certainly still have that sense of how improbable this all is,” Buttigieg told PEOPLE in January. “Again, that’s part of the point. I think, in an odd way, that’s also part of why we’re succeeding.”
Despite his narrow win in Iowa and a close second-place in the New Hampshire primary after that, Buttigieg faded in later contests and failed to connect with a wider swath of voters around the country.
He left the race last week and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, who has since surged to be the race’s front-runner.
“Today is a moment of truth,” Buttigieg said on March 1. “After a year of going everywhere, meeting everyone, defying every expectation, seeking every vote, the truth is that the path has narrowed to a close — for our candidacy if not for our cause.”
On Today on Monday, Buttigieg said he was next planning to “be traveling a little bit, thanking supporters,” and he and husband Chasten were “looking forward to some time away.”
“Then we’ll come back and I’ll make myself useful in new ways.”
