Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg shared his thoughts on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sunday after the Republican shared a video attacking former President Donald Trump over his past LGBTQ actions.
The video that sparked the comment from Buttigieg while appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” was shared by DeSantis’ presidential campaign on Twitter last week.
The video shows overtures to the LGBTQ community by Trump throughout his time in office. It also includes a clip of Trump saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
The purpose of the post was to bash Trump for his connections to the LGBTQ community, as the second half of the video appears to portray DeSantis as the more masculine of the two, rotating through pictures of DeSantis, shirtless muscular men, and headlines of anti-LGBTQ policies he has signed into law.
Buttigieg addressed the video on Sunday, saying he had to choose his words carefully because he was appearing on the show as the Transportation Secretary.
“I’m going to 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,” he said. “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 touched on his work to better people’s lives, discussing his recent travels across the country to promote the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. He then shared that he couldn’t imagine trying to make someone’s life harder.
“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.
Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg, even responded to the tweet from DeSantis. Chasten Buttigieg remarked in a snaky tweet last Friday that the video was “actually very gay.”
DeSantis’ campaign has not responded to the comments from Buttigieg on Sunday. However, in a tweet on Friday night, his campaign’s rapid response director, Christina Pushaw, did respond to some criticism the initial tweet received.
“Opposing the federal recognition of ‘Pride Month’ isn’t ‘homophobic,’” Pushaw tweeted. “We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either... It’s unnecessary, divisive, pandering.”
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