Pete Buttigieg blames forehead smudge on 'smushed' gnat at Democratic debate

Highlights from the first night of the CNN Democratic debate on Tuesday included healthcare reform, immigration and, yes, bugs.

Specifically, whereas presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg sought to focus his debate on his age and how he can lead a new generation of politics, Twitter was very much "abuzz" with a possible cosmetic slip-up on the Indiana mayor's forehead.

It turns out, however, that the smudge, which was televised throughout much of the debate, may have been a gnat that Buttigieg killed. The 37-year-old addressed the mark with CNN host Alisyn Camerota the following day.

"I have a totally cosmetic, superficial question for you. Did you have a smudge on your forehead last night? And what was that?" she asked him.

"Alright, so our best guess is that it -- there were these little, kind of gnats around. Maybe I smushed one and it got on my forehead. I don't know. I didn't know about it until after. That's the thing about having something on your forehead. But hopefully, it didn't distract from the message about what's at stake in this election," he replied.

"Well, you want to show that you can do many things at once in this election," Buttigieg added about his gnat-fighting skills.

See more highlights from the two-night debate in the video above.