Buttigieg blasts DeSantis over LGBTQ attack clip featuring ‘oiled-up shirtless bodybuilders’
Openly gay Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of using “oiled-up shirtless bodybuilders’’ to try to prove his masculinity in an ad attacking Donald Trump.
The controversial clip features Trump, who is vying against DeSantis for the GOP presidential nomination, crowing in 2016 that he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” — as multiple images of DeSantis and shredded bare-chested men are interspersed between the perceived dig and others targeting the former president.
“I’m going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders,” Buttigieg said with a sigh on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And just get to the bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again, who are you trying to help?”
The remark that Trump made in support of LGBTQ people came in the wake of the massacre at Pulse Nightclub, a gay hot spot, in Orlando, Fla.
The DeSantis ad also showcased Trump indicating that Caitlyn Jenner will be able to “use any bathroom she chooses.”
After seemingly mocking Trump for being pro-LGBTQ, the clip features DeSantis, backed by dramatic music, cracking down on drag shows and championing an anti-transgender bathroom bill, among other issues.
“DeSantis is evil,” a headline featured in the mocking clip says.
The video triggered fierce backlash, even among some conservative groups such as the Log Cabin Republicans, one of the largest gay GOP groups in the country, which slammed the DeSantis campaign for venturing “into homophobic territory.”
Buttigieg added in his interview, “I just don’t understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he’s going to prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard-hit community that is already so vulnerable in America.”
Buttigieg is the first openly gay transportation secretary in US history.
He stressed that he was “going to choose my words carefully” in response to the DeSantis video because of his position as a cabinet secretary.
DeSantis has drawn ire from the LGBTQ community in the past, including for signing Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which critics dubbed the the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
It restricted classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through the third grade. He later bumped that up to through 12th grade in April.
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