An escalating feud between the two main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination is akin to a “teenage food fight,” another challenger, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, said on Sunday.
He made the comment after the campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has slipped in the polls to Donald Trump, released a “homophobic” video attacking the former US president for his previous support of the LGBTQ+ community.
It shows DeSantis, whose barrage of attacks on minorities in his own state has drawn praise from his extremist base and condemnation from trans and gay rights advocates, celebrating his signing of “the most extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history” and a “draconian anti-trans bathroom bill.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The video, and Trump’s attacks on DeSantis using “juvenile” nicknames such as Ron Sanctimonious and Meatball Ron, failed to impress Christie, who told CNN’s State of the Union he would prefer the candidates to focus on “real issues” rather than each other.
“I’m not comfortable with it. And I’m not comfortable with the way both Governor DeSantis and Donald Trump are moving our debate in this country,” he said.
“We have nine-and-a-half-million children in this country every night who go to bed hungry, we have 21 percent of our students in 10th grade saying they’re using hard illegal drugs. And this is the kind of stuff that we’re talking about? he said.
Photo: AP
“It’s a teenage food fight between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump and I don’t think that’s what leaders should be doing. It doesn’t make me feel inspired as an American, on the Fourth of July weekend, to have this back-and-forth going on,” he said.
“It’s narrowing our country and making it smaller. I want a country that’s going to be bigger, and going after the big issues that will make every American feel better about themselves, their families and their country,” he said.
Christie was not the only politician with thoughts about DeSantis’ video on Sunday.
In his own appearance on State of the Union, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay, referenced some of the imagery featured in it, specifically masked, shirtless men, including a clip of actor Brad Pitt from the movie Troy.
“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 get to the bigger issue, which is who are you trying to help?” he said.
“Who are you trying to make better off, and what public policy problems can you get up in the morning thinking about how to solve?” he said.
Caitlyn Jenner, a prominent trans activist and Trump supporter, said DeSantis had reached “a new low” with the video.
“He’s so desperate he’ll do anything to get ahead. That’s been the theme of his campaign. You can’t win a general [election], let alone 2028 by going after people that are integral parts of the conservative movement,” she wrote on Twitter.
Christina Pushaw, the registered “foreign agent” who is DeSantis’ director of rapid response, denied the campaign was being anti-gay for, among other things, opposing Pride month.
“We wouldn’t support a month to celebrate straight people for sexual orientation, either... It’s unnecessary, divisive, pandering,” she wrote on Twitter.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS