Buttigieg mocks DeSantis featuring 'oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders' in homophobic attack ad

02 July 2023

United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg tore into Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis this weekend over an ad that the DeSantis War Room released on Friday attacking former President Donald Trump for supposedly being too soft toward LGBTQ Pride.

The spot was "widely condemned as homophobic, including by a prominent group representing gay and lesbian Republicans," The New York Timesnoted on Saturday.

Yvonne Dean-Bailey, an openly gay GOP ex-legislator, wrote inThe Daily Beast that she "was undeniably on Team DeSantis before his campaign shared what could be considered the most anti-LGBTQ+ ad in recent history, boasting about all the measures he's supported cracking down on the LGBTQ+ community. Not only did DeSantis show that he is as anti-LGBTQ+ as the mainstream media has alleged, he made a mockery of any GOP candidate that shows an interest in LGBTQ+ rights, setting the whole party back decades."

Meanwhile, on Sunday's edition of CNN's State of the Union, Buttigieg blasted DeSantis for pushing an agenda that serves no other purpose than to harm people.

"Ron DeSantis' campaign tweeted a video attacking President Trump for his past support for LGBTQ Americans, touted DeSantis' own record of restricting their rights. I want you to look and listen to just part of that long video," host Dana Bash said.

"I cannot think of anything more horrifying," remarked MSNBC host Chris Hayes.

"It really has shut down drag" and DeSantis "just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threatened trans existence," other voices are heard saying.

"What's your reaction to that video?" Bash asked Buttigieg, who roundly mocked DeSantis over its homoerotic footage:

You know I'm gonna choose my words carefully, partly cuz I'm appearing as secretary so I, I can't talk about campaigns. And I'm gonna leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of view in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders 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? Who are you trying to make better off, and what public policy problems do you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve?

Buttigieg also touted President Joe Biden's policies aimed at strengthening communities:

You know, what we're focused is an administration on how to get things done to make people better off. I spent my week traveling around the country to places that are benefiting from infrastructure funding. We were in Appalachia in an Eastern Kentucky community that's been wiped out by floods repeatedly, and we're bringing them highway funding that's gonna help them not only improve the road, but also improve the dam and protect them from floods in the future. A few weeks ago, we were in North Dakota where there's a railroad crossing that was a community headache for decades. And thanks to President Biden's bipartisan infrastructure funds, we finally have the resources to do something about it, and we're gonna make that better and have it not be a problem holding back first responders.

These are the kinds of problems that most of us got into government politics and public service in order to work on and I just don't understand the mentality of somebody who gets up in the morning thinking that he's gonna prove his worth by competing over who can make life hardest for a hard hit community that is already so vulnerable in America.

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