WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – In Washington, D.C., a sharp division is growing over recent Supreme Court rulings.
Hot-button issues related to gay rights, college admissions, and student loans are all in the spotlight.
Republicans, with their eyes on 2024, are applauding the court’s decisions from the campaign trail.
Monday morning, there are high court repercussions as 2024 candidates and the White House respond to the recent major Supreme Court decisions.
President Biden is racing to find new ways to erase some federal student loan debt after the conservative justices blocked the president’s first proposal, a decision that candidate Donald Trump praised in South Carolina Saturday.
“They ruled against it,” Trump said. “100% against it, amazing.”
Another controversial decision is stoking divisions over gay rights.
The high court found that a Colorado Christian web designer has a free speech right to refuse to create gay wedding websites.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said, “I think it’s a real victory for religious liberty”
It comes as Trump’s main rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is under fire his campaign’s new video posted on the last day of Pride Month attacking Trump for his past support of the LGBTQ community.
The video then features a sequence showing DeSantis’ hard line on drag shows and transgender policy interspersed with images of shirtless men and photos of Brad Pitt in the movie “Troy.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay U.S. Cabinet member, was asked to respond. He said, “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.”
Then, questioned how that benefits the public, Secretary Buttigieg replied, “Who are you trying to help? Who are you trying to make better off?”
Some of DeSantis’s Republican rivals are also pushing back.
Log Cabin Republicans, a group that represents LGBTQ conservatives, called it divisive and said DeSantis’s rhetoric has “ventured into homophobic territory”.
A DeSantis campaign official tweeted in response to criticism: “Identity politics is poison.”
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