Taylor Lorenz blasts ‘disgusting’ Pete Buttigieg’s deadly COVID-19 plans

Journalist Taylor Lorenz, never one to pull punches, just went nuclear — again. This time, her targets are former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a now-viral X post. Lorenz is known for her flair for dramatics. Even by her standards, this was a scorcher.

Buttigieg’s whiplash COVID hot take

In a Bulwark podcast interview, Buttigieg recently acknowledged, maybe, just maybe, closing schools for over a year during the pandemic wasn’t an unqualified success. In a moment of retrospective honesty, Buttigieg admitted that keeping kids out of school had serious downsides, including academic and social setbacks.

As one comment noted, Lorenz’s “eugenics” allegations were a bit much. It said, “You are leaving out quite a bit here,” the commenter added, noting Buttigieg said in the interview, ‘I think most people would have liked to have found a way to safely get more schools open more quickly.”

Who is Taylor Lorenz?

In case you’re unfamiliar: Lorenz is a former tech and internet culture reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She’s made a name for herself tracking TikTok trends, influencer drama, and the occasional political flamethrower session — usually from her own account.

After leaving WaPo in 2024 amid internal clashes, she launched User Mag, an independent Substack-style outlet where she’s free to rage-tweet and write longform thinkpieces on internet culture and public health without pesky editors telling her to chill.

Love her or loathe her, Lorenz has become a lightning rod for internet-era journalism. Her critics say she’s chronically online and catastrophically over-the-top. Her fans say she’s one of the few willing to hold power to account in a world that’s all too ready to “move on.”

Buttigieg: Whoops our bad

Lorenz’s fury over her perceived “whoops, our bad” approach to school closures wasn’t just performative. It was part of a larger pattern: she believes the pandemic was mismanaged by a leadership class more concerned with optics than lives — can’t say we disagree.

Of course, her delivery may leave even sympathetic readers reaching for Advil. But she’s not trying to be polite. She’s trying to torch the furniture and make sure the smoke reaches every corner of D.C.

Whether that makes her a truth-teller or just another voice screaming into the algorithm — well, that depends on how you feel about the last five years of American politics. One thing’s certain: if you’re looking for nuance, you’re probably not following Taylor Lorenz.