Pete Buttigieg did a great job shooting down Fox's best efforts to put him on defense over Hunter Biden's emails in a pre-debate appearance.

Buttigieg once again visited Fox News before the presidential debate and, just like last time, he served as a role model for other Democrats appearing on the network.

Hosts Bret Baier and “ultimate journalist” Martha MacCallum focused like Trumper laser beams on Hunter Biden, as if he should have been the focus of the entire debate. Oh, sure, Bret Baier asked a perfunctory, “What’s the closing elevator pitch?” and even then Buttigieg had a great answer: “It doesn’t have to be this bad and we’re going to build back better.”

But then it was on to Hunter Biden, with MacCallum acting as if this is the most important issue on Americans’ minds. If Buttigieg was in Joe Biden’s place, how would he respond to “the latest reporting” on the “Biden family finances,” Hunter Biden’s emails and his laptop being turned over to the FBI.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, the last time the president brought this up, it backfired. The president attacked someone for having an addiction and millions of Americans who know and love people who have battled addiction saw, in the eyes of Joe Biden, someone who loves his son and somebody who can relate to so many American families as he conquered that.

Now, even though that was a failed strategy last time, it sounds like Donald Trump’s preparing to go for that again, I think because he would rather talk about the vice president’s family than talk about our families, your families, American families. But Joe Biden’s not the kind of person who’s going to be sidetracked by that. I think what you’re going to see is him, you know, relentlessly returning to the fundamental question which is, how are our lives as Americans going to be made better when we have better leadership.

Then it was Baier’s turn. Once again, Buttigieg crushed it

BAIER: You’re a former military intelligence officer. The original response from Biden surrogates was that this was Russian disinformation and now you have someone on the record, who was on that email chain, you have the FBI and the DNI saying it was not Russian disinformation. Is it concerning at all and is there an answer about the authenticity of these emails that Joe Biden will offer today?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, we don’t know – as far as I can tell, even Fox News hasn’t confirmed the authenticity of a lot of this stuff being thrown around there and I think you know what this really comes down to is desperation, right?

I mean, does anybody really think after like a year and a half of obsessively trying to go after this and drum something up – and remember, even a Senate-led Republican panel, or I should say Republican-led Senate panel investigated this, didn’t find anything wrong with the vice president’s actions and yet, 12 days out, trying to whip something else up.

That kind of desperation shows you just how rough things have got because of the president’s inability to state any plan for what he’s going to do as leader of this country for four more years and it’s unfortunate that he’s really taken down the honor of the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, I remember when Rudy Giuliani was widely respected on both sides of the aisle. He’s now been reduced to digital dumpster diving in order to get America looking at and talking about literally anything else than the president’s failed record on dealing with the pandemic, the economic consequences, and his inability to state a vision for four more years.

Baier didn’t probe so that viewers could understand more of what Buttigieg was referring to (the Senate investigation, Giuliani’s descent, Trump’s pandemic record, etc.) He only wanted to learn more about what Buttigieg was saying about the latest Fox/Trump star, Tony Bobulinski. Buttigieg nailed it again.

BAIER: Just to be clear, you’re saying that this former-Lieutenant Bobulinski is lying about these emails and texts? Isn’t that authenticating it?

Buttigieg: It’s not even clear what he’s claiming adds up to. They’re just kind of saying, “Oh, there are questions.” Let’s ask, if they want to make this about the business deals of a government official, let’s talk about the president of the United States having a secret Chinese bank account. That’s not like, you know, something somebody said that used to work with somebody related to the president. That’s a matter of documented fact and they won’t even tell you what bank it’s with. Does that bother Americans? I’m pretty sure it bothers Americans a lot more than what they’re trying to whip up for the last 12 days of this election season.

The two hosts had no answer to that. MacCallum said, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to hear a bit more about both sides of that equation this evening” and then she played a clip of Charlamagne Tha God praising Trump for courting young Black male voters. (She didn’t mention that Charlamagne also said he’s voting for the Biden/Harris ticket, though more for Harris than Biden.)

Buttigieg had a great answer for that, too.

Watch it below, from Fox News’ October 22, 2020 pre-debate coverage, and see why Buttigieg has become my favorite Fox guest.