Ron DeSantis doubles down on controversial anti-LGBTQ ad amid criticism

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday defended a controversial ad that touts his opposition to LGBTQ rights and calls out Donald Trump over his past support for such rights, the news website OutKick reports.

The ad has been described as “homophobic” and “divisive and desperate” by fellow Republicans. It was posted by the DeSantis War Room twitter account and has been viewed more than 24.6 million times as of Wednesday.

“Yeah look, I think identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where he was having men compete against women, I think that’s totally fair game,” DeSantis told Tomi Lahren.

DeSantis said Trump’s previous statements are at odds with his current position.

“He’s now campaigning, saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think that you should have men competing in women’s things like athletics,” he continued.

The ad drew widespread criticism including a stinging rebuke from The Log Cabin Republicans.

“Today’s message from the DeSantis campaign War Room is divisive and desperate. Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know Ron DeSantis has alienated swing-state and younger voters,” the group said in a statement that accuses DeSantis of trafficking in “extreme rhetoric" that "has just ventured into homophobic territory.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday criticized the ad during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash.

"You know, I'm going to choose my words carefully, partly because I'm appearing as secretary, so I can't talk about campaigns," Buttigieg said.

"And 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…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?"

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