The Vice President strikes the right tone here

Pence was going to have to come out with some kind of statement on Buttigieg's unprovoked attack sooner or later.
He has done so, and it's balanced yet blunt:

“He said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better. He knows me,” Pence said in a teaser clip of the interview released Wednesday. “But I get it. You know, it’s—look, again, 19 people running for president on that side in a party that’s sliding off to the left. And they’re all competing with one another for how much more liberal they can be.”

In other words, Mayor Pete pretty much had to in order to not get behind in the progressive bona fides sweepstakes.