Ron DeSantis shooting lightning bolts from his eyes in a screen cap from his latest campaign ad bragging about what a homophobe he is. JILL COLVINAssociated Press NEW YORK — A prominent group represents LGBT conservatives says a video shared by Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign slamming Donald Trump for his past support of gay and transgender people “ventured into homophobic territory.” They did not say if it was the lightning bolts coming out of DeSantis’ eyes in the video or the interstitial shots of shirtless, oiled-up muscle men that tipped the scales into “homophobic territory,” however.
The “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account shared the video on June 30, the last day of June’s LGBTQ Pride Month. The truly odd video, which looks like it might have been dreamed up by a teenager in their parents’ basement, features footage of Trump speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2016, in the weeks following the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.’’ The video also highlights ‘‘LGBTQ for Trump’’ T-shirts sold by the former president’s campaign and his past comments saying he would be comfortable with Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete who came out as a transgender woman in 2015, using any bathroom at Trump Tower and that he was OK with transgender women competing one day in the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time of those remarks.
The video then suddenly veers in a different direction, accompanied by dark, thumping music and images of DeSantis, the Florida governor who is trailing Trump by wide margins in the polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.