"Who are you trying to help?": Pete Buttigieg reacts to DeSantis' anti-LGBTQ+ campaign video

Pete ButtigiegEthan Miller/Getty Images
Pete ButtigiegEthan Miller/Getty Images

Over the weekend, a bizarre campaign video from team DeSantis has been circulating that pokes at Trump's wishy-washy support/not support of the LGBTQ+ community while reveling in DeSantis' own machismo.

In the clip, which we'll link to below, news bites of the former president contradicting his current stance on LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion are interspliced with a fanged and laser-eyed DeSantis in celebration of his goal to position the community as second-class citizens — the later half of the video set to a block-rocking beat, featuring random clips from the film "American Psycho," and images of beefy, shirtless men for who knows what reason.

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In a segment of "State of the Union" on Sunday, openly gay United States Secretary of Transportation and one-time presidential hopeful, Pete Buttigieg, is asked to comment on the homophobic video, and he does so with an admirable amount of restraint.

Speaking to host, Dana Bash, he poses the question, "Who are you trying to help?" in reference to DeSantis' messaging.

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"I'm gonna choose my words carefully," Buttigieg says with a sigh, "partly because I'm appearing as secretary, so I can't talk about campaigns. And I'm gonna 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 body-builders, and just get to the bigger issue . . . 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?"

Giving an example of how, elsewhere in the administration, efforts are focused on infrastructure funding and other beneficial uses of one's time that impact the greater good, he all but shakes his head at DeSantis' chest-pounding.

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