CNN
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A campaign Twitter account for Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential bid is under fire for marking the end of Pride Month on Friday by sharing a video criticizing Republican challenger Donald Trump’s earlier pledge to protect LGBTQ rights.
DeSantis War Room – Florida Governor’s “Rapid Response” Campaign Account – reposted the video from another Twitter account called “Proud Elephant,” with the caption: “To end ‘Pride Month,’ we hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate…”
The video portrays the former president as a supporter of transgender rights and includes a clip of his acceptance speech at the 2016 Republican convention, just over a month after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, in which he says : “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.”
The video also includes other clips of Trump purportedly expressing support for LGBTQ rights, including an opening to allow Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender woman, to use the bathroom of her choice at Trump Tower and including transgender women in Miss Universe , a beauty pageant. previously owned.
The video contrasts Trump’s DeSantis with footage showing recent measures enacted by DeSantis that have curbed LGBTQ protections in the state.
CNN has not independently verified the authenticity of all clips used in the video.
As CNN previously reported, years before he ran for president, Trump welcomed and praised the inclusion of transgender women in the Miss Universe pageant. But as he seeks to secure the 2024 Republican nomination, the former president has vowed to “ban” transgender athletes from playing on women’s sports teams and outlaw gender-affirmation surgery for minors if he returns to the White House.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticized the video, telling CNN it showed “a desperate campaign in its last throes.” Trump is widely considered the polling favorite for the 2024 GOP nomination, despite his legal troubles, with DeSantis a distant second.
Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBTQ conservatives, called the video “divisive and desperate.”
“Conservatives understand that we must protect our children, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces, and strengthen fathers’ rights, but Ron DeSantis’ extreme rhetoric has just ventured into homophobic territory,” he said. the group in a statement.
In response to online criticism, Christina Pushaw, the director of rapid response for the DeSantis War Room Twitter account, called Pride Month “unnecessary, divisive, self-indulgent.”
“Opposing federal recognition of ‘Pride Month’ is not homophobic,” Pushaw said. in a tweet. “We wouldn’t support a month celebrating heterosexual people based on sexual orientation, either…”
Pride Month was first recognized by President Bill Clinton in 1999 in commemoration of the Stonewall riots of late June 1969, which many point to as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. In 2017, Trump broke with recent precedent by not recognizing the month. Trump’s White House he recognized Pride Month in 2019.
CNN has reached out to the DeSantis campaign for comment.
The video sharing highlights a strategy adopted by the DeSantis campaign to establish the governor as a more conservative alternative to Trump on several issues, including LGBTQ rights, abortion, immigration and guns. During the campaign, the governor often brings up various measures he has signed in Florida to make his case.
These measures include a restriction on the use of pronouns in public schools that do not match the gender on a person’s birth certificate and a ban on transgender people from using a bathroom or locker room in a government building that match their gender identity. DeSantis also led an effort to restrict the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in all K-12 schools, an extension of the controversial Parents’ Rights in Education Act of 2022 called the “Don’t Say Gay ” by his critics, which forbade such instruction through third grade. These measures came into force on 1 July.
Florida currently has a near-total ban on 15-week abortions, but DeSantis in April signed a more restrictive ban on 6-week abortions that would take effect if the state Supreme Court overturns its previous precedent as it considers legal challenges at 15 weeks. prohibition Trump has called the six-week abortion ban “too harsh” and has also privately blamed abortion hardliners for the GOP’s lackluster 2022 midterm results.
