Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in "carefully" worded comments, said Sunday he questions the messaging behind a video posted on Twitter by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' "war room" that attacks former President Donald Trump on LGBTQ rights.
"I'm going to choose my words carefully — partly because I'm appearing as secretary, so I can't talk about campaigns," Buttigieg, who is openly gay, said during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."
But at the same time, he said he would "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."
Further, Buttigieg said the bigger issue with the video leads to these questions: "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?"
DeSantis' campaign reposted a video Friday on Twitter showing overtures Trump has made to the LGBTQ community, saying they were posting it to "wrap up 'Pride Month,'" by hearing "from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it."
The clip shows footage of Trump saying that he would "do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens" while speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2016, in remarks after the deadly mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The second part of the video shifts the focus to DeSantis, where images of him are shown along with those of muscular men and headlines about the anti-LGBTQ laws he's signed.
The secretary noted he's been traveling around the country to places where the money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is being spent after President Joe Biden signed the legislation in 2021.
"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 said.
The video has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, reports NBC News, noting that the DeSantis campaign did not return a call for comment.
The Log Cabin Republicans, which represents LGBTQ conservatives, said on Twitter that the spot ventures "into homophobic territory" and will cause DeSantis to lose "hard-fought gains" across the country.
"This old playbook has been tried in the past and has failed — repeatedly," said another tweet, calling DeSantis' policies and positions "dangerous and politically stupid."
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is also seeking the GOP presidential nomination, told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the video "does nothing to address" serious issues." He said the campaign for the GOP nomination has become a "teenage food fight" between DeSantis and Trump.
"I don't think that's what leaders should be doing," he added.
Buttigieg on Sunday also slammed the Supreme Court's ruling in favor of a Christian web designer in Colorado who said she refuses to create custom websites for same-sex couples who are getting married, saying that goes against her religious beliefs.
The case, he said, was designed for the "clear purpose of chipping away" at LGBTQ equality.
"It's very revealing that there's no evidence that this web designer was ever even approached by anyone asking for a website for a same-sex wedding," he commented.
His comments follow reports that the web designer, Lorie Smith, said in court documents that a man asked about her services for a web page but the man she identified says he never reached out to her and that he's straight and has been married a woman for 15 years.
via newsmax