DeSantis team shares Pride Month-inspired video in latest attack on Trump

Republican presidential nominee Ron DeSantis’ campaign on Friday shared a video attacking former President Trump’s past positions on the LGBTQ community as Pride Month draws to a close.

“As we wrap up Pride Month, we hear once again from the politician who helped celebrate it more than any other Republican,” reads the DeSantis War Room tweetedalongside a video put together by another Twitter user.

The video shows a clip from the 2016 Republican National Convention in which Trump promises to “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.” It also underscores the former president’s opposition during the 2016 campaign to a law banning transgender people from using toilets that match their gender identity.

The video then turns to DeSantis and appears to tout various headlines describing his transgender policies as “extreme,” “draconian,” “totalitarianism in disguise,” and “unjustified and un-American.”

Florida’s governor last month passed several bills targeting transgender people. Legislation restricts gender-based tutoring for transgender children, prohibits transgender people from using gender-consistent bathrooms, and prevents teachers and students from using the pronouns of their choice in school.

But despite Trump’s apparent support for the LGBTQ community during the 2016 election campaign, his administration was quick to target the transgender community. Shortly after taking office, the former president repealed Obama-era policies on schools catering to transgender students.

He later tweeted that transgender people could no longer serve in the military, and his Justice Department said it would no longer argue that transgender people were protected from job discrimination nationwide.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump used even more extreme rhetoric, promising to “ban men from participating in women’s sports” and calling gender-affirming surgery on transgender youth “sexual mutilation of children.”

This year’s Pride Month has met with clearer opposition from conservatives, who have criticized and boycotted companies that have expressed support for the LGBTQ community.

This comes amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level, where more than 500 such laws have been introduced and 70 enacted, according to the Human Rights Campaign.