Ron DeSantis Doubles Down on Homophobic Video as “Totally Fair Game”

Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has doubled down on attacking Donald Trump for his occasional support of LGBTQ+ Americans—because, apparently, being blatantly homophobic is “totally fair game.” The Florida governor said as much to conservative commentator Tomi Lahren in an interview Wednesday, saying that his campaign’s latest video—touting DeSantis as having the “harshest and most draconian” anti-LGBTQ+ record, and juxtaposing it with soundbites of Trump sounding sympathetic toward gay and trans communities—was simply “identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream.”

“He was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants. I think that’s totally fair game because he’s now campaigning saying the opposite,” DeSantis said. The video was billed as a statement against Pride Month, praised by some hard-line conservative culture warriors, and widely condemned as homophobic—even by some on the political right.

Produced by the Twitter account Proud Elephant and shared by the DeSantis campaign’s “rapid response” arm, the video opens with a 2016 clip of Trump promising to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” a month after the Pulse nightclub shooting, wherein dozens were gunned down at a gay nightclub in Florida, and also ties Trump to Caitlyn Jenner. The latter part of the video features thumping club music and footage of the governor laughing and strutting, between news clips that describe his policies toward the LGBTQ+ community as totalitarian, “horrifying,” and “evil.” (The ad, which resembles content put out by far-right figure Andrew Tate, also seemingly attempts to paint DeSantis as a hypermasculine bodybuilder, interposing footage of Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Achilles in Troy and a Russian fitness model who inspired the “GigaChad” meme.)

In reality, Trump’s record on LGBTQ+ issues has been anything but sympathetic. His administration opposed the Equality Act, a bill that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; banned transgender service members from the military; rolled back nondiscrimination policies put in place by former president Barack Obama, including protections for trans kids in schools; threatened to withhold federal funding to schools that allowed trans kids to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity; and proposed countless regulations that would have put LGBTQ+ people’s livelihoods at higher risk, including allowing homeless shelters, adoption agencies, and foster care agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. Trump’s Health Department even proposed changing the definition of sex to erase transgender Americans entirely.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign countered the video by calling DeSantis “a flailing candidate” in his “last throes of relevancy.” Former Trump administration official Richard Grenell, a notable gay conservative, who has defended Trump despite his own anti-LGBTQ+ record, called the DeSantis video “undeniably homophobic,” while the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay conservative group, said it “ventured into homophobic territory” and alienated young voters.

Trump, however, is on to something with DeSantis. This latest attempt at a smear was clearly an effort to outmaneuver Trump from the right, consistent with how DeSantis has sought to sell himself as tougher on crime than Trump and just as harsh on immigration. This rebranding effort, however, has done little for his middling poll numbers: Trump currently leads DeSantis by nearly 30 points nationally.

The DeSantis campaign is keenly aware of their candidate’s predicament. “I believe in being really blunt and really honest. It’s an uphill battle,” Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser turned DeSantis surrogate, acknowledged over the weekend. “Right now in national polling, we are way behind. I’ll be the first to admit that.” Though Cortes, whose comments came in a Twitter Spaces event Sunday, added that polls are “a lot tighter” in the first four primary states, and insisted voters will back DeSantis once they get to know him better. But as my colleague Bess Levin noted this week, DeSantis’s recent rise atop the national stage has coincided with more voters souring on him. And in the early states that Cortes so optimistically referenced, DeSantis remains a massive underdog, trailing Trump in the latest polls by roughly 32 points in Iowa, 28 in New Hampshire, 23 in South Carolina, and 30 in Nevada. At this rate, even the chiseled bodybuilder from DeSantis’s anti-Pride ad might have trouble lifting his campaign out of its crypt.