Ron DeSantis campaign suggests Joe Biden is a child molester for supporting LGBTQ+ equality

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) campaign released a video that implies that President Joe Biden is a child molester, citing his support for LGBTQ+ equality as evidence.

The video – which the DeSantis War Room account on Twitter captioned “Keep your hands off kids” – shows some awkward footage of Biden getting pictures taken with groups, some of which included children. The footage is played slowly with scary music in the background to add to the suggestion that the videos show something inappropriate.

Related:

Donald Trump implies that Ron DeSantis might be gay

“Or possibly a man!” Trump said about DeSantis’s hypothetical sexual misconduct.

In the voiceover, quotes from Biden and Biden administration officials about the importance of supporting children are played to illustrate the point that Biden loves children… in the wrong way. Some of the quotes are played with distorted voices to handwave past the fact that nothing alarming is being said.

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“LGBTQ Americans, especially children, you’re loved, you’re heard, and this administration has your back,” Biden can be heard saying in the voiceover. That quote is from a June 8 press event where Biden renewed his demand that Congress pass the Equality Act.

The video is similar to one released by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) earlier this year after she called Biden a “pedophile” on 60 Minutes. Greene has shown support in the past for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which states that major Democratic leaders and Hollywood celebrities are part of a Satanic international cabal of child sex abusers who kill infants to drink their blood. She frequently uses unfounded accusations of pedophilia to attack political enemies.

DeSantis is currently in a distant second place in polling on the Republican presidential primary election behind Donald Trump. Like many of the other candidates, his campaign is stuck between a rock and a hard place: he can’t criticize Trump head-on because of the latter’s popularity with the GOP base, but he also needs to be able to make an argument about why he would be a stronger candidate than Trump. Attacking Biden appears to be part of that strategy, even in the primary.

DeSantis has also long used accusations of child sex abuse to attack political opponents. Last year, when his administration was promoting the Don’t Say Gay bill that effectively banned talking about LGBTQ+ people in younger grades and restricted discussions of them in older grades, DeSantis’s press secretary said that anyone who opposed the bill was a pedophile.

The 2020 Trump campaign produced a similar ad calling Biden “Creepy Joe” in that presidential election.

DeSantis himself has faced grooming accusations from the Trump campaign. In February, Trump shared a photo of DeSantis that allegedly shows him from his time as a high school teacher at the Darlington School in Georgia drinking alcohol with underage girls.

“That’s not Ron, is it?” Trump wrote when sharing the photo. “He would never do such a thing!”

Last November, The New York Times published an investigation in which several former Darlington School students recalled DeSantis attending at least two post-graduation parties where alcohol was served. Another former student remembered seeing a memo reminding teachers that fraternizing with students was inappropriate.

“‘That’s got to be about Mr. DeSantis!’ That’s what I remember everyone saying,” 2003 Darlington grad Gates Minis said.