Critics slam DeSantis campaign for sharing anti-Trump ad targeting LGBTQ rights

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faces criticism from inside and outside his party after his presidential campaign shared a video touting his record of opposing LGBTQ rights and attacking former President Donald Trump for his past support.

The minute-plus video was made by the Proud Elephant Twitter account and shared by the DeSantis War Room on its campaign’s “quick response” account on the last Friday of June.

“To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it,” the War Room account wrote.

The video opens with a clip of then-candidate Trump pledging to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” in a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, weeks only after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando.

This is followed by several interview excerpts in which Trump says he would let Caitlyn Jenner use a bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower and that he would allow transgender women to compete in Miss Universe (which he co-owned until in 2015).

Meanwhile, upbeat music plays in the background as images of, among other things, Trump holding a rainbow flag, “LGBTQ for Trump” t-shirts from his campaign website and his tweet 2019 celebrating Pride Month float across the screen. A drag queen called “Lady MAGA” appears on screen, saying “Make America Great Again”.

Then the tone of the video changes drastically. There’s a photo of DeSantis, edited to show lasers shooting out of his eyes, along with the word “no.” The music shifts to a punchy bass beat as a montage of titles, memes and film clips begins.

It features headlines about DeSantis policies, like “DeSantis signs ‘most extreme list of anti-trans laws in modern history'” and “Pride event at St. Cloud canceled after DeSantis signs the “Child Protection Act”.

There are brief clips of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho”, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in “Wolf of Wall Street” and Brad Pitt as Achilles in “Troy “. There are flashes of bodybuilders and the chiseled figure known online as “Gigachad,” intercut with clips of DeSantis deliberately walking, signing legislation and riding in a helicopter.

This is covered in strips of commentators and news anchors criticizing the governor’s actions, including describing them as “some of the toughest, most draconian laws that literally threaten the existence of trans people.”

The video has been viewed more than 22 million times as of Monday morning, according to Twitter.

And it drew a lot of backlash, including from DeSantis’ Republican challengers, LGBTQ politicians on both sides of the aisle, and the nation’s largest conservative LGBTQ group.

NPR has reached out to the DeSantis team for comment.

What the critics say

The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that champions LGBTQ conservatives, said in a Twitter thread that DeSantis’ rhetoric had “deviated into homophobic territory,” calling it “divisive and desperate.”

Charles Moran, the group’s chairman, told Morning Edition on Monday that the announcement had no clear purpose or purpose.

“You have some weird footage of Ron DeSantis between two oiled, muscled types of men,” he said. “I mean, the ad smacks of both homophobia and homoeroticism.”

Moran said the Republican Party has “already basically agreed” to stand up for equal rights for LGBTQ people, pointing to polls that show widespread support for marriage equality.

A May Gallup poll shows the percentage of Republicans approving of same-sex relationships has risen from 56% last year to 41% this year.

“A misguided attack like this shows they’re really not focused and they don’t have anyone on their team who really understands where the movement is,” Moran added. “And it’s that style of attack that … is going to backfire and isn’t helpful to his campaign or the GOP in general.”

Former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican and vocal Trump critic, also questioned the usefulness of the video, adding that “outrage against outrage is the only way these guys know how. to make a campaign”.

Similar criticism was echoed by a slew of LGBTQ Republicans, including Jenner, who tweeted that DeSantis had “hit a new low.”

“You can’t win a general, let alone 2028, by prosecuting people who are integral to the conservative movement!” she added.

Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence and the first openly gay cabinet member, called the video “undeniably homophobic.”

Christina Pushaw, the rapid response director for DeSantis’ campaign, responded in a tweet that opposing federal recognition of Pride Month is not homophobic.

“Nor would we support a month to celebrate straight sexual orientation…It’s unnecessary, divisive, flattering,” she wrote. “In a country as vast and diverse as the United States, identity politics is poison.”

(The Clinton administration first recognized Pride Month in 1999. Trump broke with precedent by not recognizing Pride Month until 2019, the third year of his presidency.)

Critics have also come from within the Biden administration. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay cabinet member to be endorsed by the Senate, alluded to DeSantis “trying to prove his manhood” and asked who he was aiming to help.

“I just don’t understand the mentality of someone getting up in the morning thinking they are going to prove their worth by competing which can make life harder for a hard hit community that is already so vulnerable in America,” Buttigieg said on CNN.

What other GOP candidates are saying

Trump’s team criticized the video, with campaign spokesman Steven Cheung telling CNN it showed “a desperate campaign in its final pangs of relevance.”

And several of their main GOP challengers have also spoken out against it.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told CNN on Sunday that he was not comfortable with the video, or “how Governor DeSantis and Donald Trump are moving our debate forward in this country. “.

He called their back-and-forth a “teenage food fight”, describing it as inappropriate for leaders and distracting from the bigger issues facing the country.

“It certainly doesn’t make me want as an American on the 4th of July weekend to have this type of back and forth, and it’s wrong to do that, and it shrinks our country, and making us smaller,” Christie added.

Separately, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd told CNN he doesn’t think LGBTQ rights should be the focus of the campaign.

He highlighted what he sees as more pressing issues like the economy, artificial intelligence and international relations.

“I wish they were focusing their attacks on war criminals like Vladimir Putin, not my friends in the LGBTQ community,” Hurd said. “It’s 2023. We should talk about how we accept our differences…we’re better off together.”

Where Trump and DeSantis stand on LGBTQ rights

While the video portrays Trump as a staunch ally of the LGTBQ community, his administration has notably taken several steps to drastically reduce the protections it enjoys.

Among them, he banned transgender service members from the military, rolled back Obama-era discrimination protections and guidance for schools on transgender students, appointed judges with anti-LGBTQ backgrounds. and sought to block sexual orientation questions from the census.

And it looks like Trump would go even further if re-elected for a second term.

In a speech Friday, he said he would sign an executive order to cut federal funding for any school “pushing critical race theory, transgender madness and other racially, sexually or politically inappropriate content on our children.” , according to the Associated Press. .

He also pledged to sign an executive order directing federal agencies “to cease promoting sex or gender transition at any age,” adding that hospitals and health care providers should lose federal funding if they do. they provide gender-affirming care to minors.

Trump and DeSantis have spoken out against transgender women participating in women’s sports and have described gender-affirming care for minors as “mutilation,” NBC News reports.

DeSantis, who said during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign that “going into toilet wars, I don’t think is a good use of our time” has taken a tougher stance in recent years, signing a slew of bills that roll back protections for gay and transgender people.

Last March, he signed a bill that critics called “Don’t Say Gay,” which bars public school teachers from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity.

This spring, Florida enacted what the Human Rights Campaign calls “a record six specifically anti-LGBTQ+ bills,” more than the past seven years combined.

Among them are bills that ban transitional care for minors, ban trans people from using public facilities that match their gender identity, and ban schools from requiring students or employees to refer to each other with pronouns that do not correspond to their assignment. sex at birth.

Another bill, aimed at preventing children from attending drag shows, was blocked by a federal judge late last month (just days before the Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, n ruled that a web designer had the right to refuse gay marriage work).

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