Morning Joe Crew Torches ‘Bizarre Twisted Deviant’ And ‘Homoerotic’ Anti-Trump Ad From ‘Prince of Darkness’ DeSantis

Morning Joe stars trashed the attack ad leveled at ex-President Donald Trump by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — and trashed DeSantis as a dark and deeply insecure figure.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist played the ad and asked MJ regular and “ad man extraordinaire” Donny Deutsch what they were all looking at, and Deutsch went to town on DeSantis:

WILLIE GEIST: Donny Deutsch. Ad man extraordinaire. What am I? What am I looking at?

DONNY DEUTSCH: Ad Man Extraordinaire is stumped. Okay?

WILLIE GEIST: What are we. What are we doing here?

DONNY DEUTSCH: The answer is, well, first of all, he’s, DeSantis is flailing and he’s trying to continually move to the right of Trump. But this LGBTQ thing is just like, Who do you think this is moving voters? Are you?

To paint Trump as a patron of this group is, you know, see as an ad guy. There’s one thing I learned over the years is people aren’t stupid. You just, and I don’t know the voter that’s going to see that go, You know what? Trump, I’m gone. DeSantis, you’re my guy.

DeSantis is such a dark, dark, dark character. I’ve talked a lot about in the show how at the end of the day, a candidate, Trump even though, you know, we eviscerate him and– there is a likability, if you’re a Trump guy, about him, he’s entertaining. He’s a lounge act. He’s this, and that.

This guy. he’s just dark, the Prince of Darkness. That is one of the darkest, most bizarre, twisted, deviant ads I’ve ever seen.

MSNBC analyst Mara Gay and Geist pointed out the observation that many have made about the ad’s self-contradictory “homoerotic” edge:

MARA GAY: I mean, it’s like he went to finishing school at the Heritage Foundation or something. I mean, I don’t know who he thinks this is resonating with. It’s not.

I also just have to say the ad itself, a couple of people have said this. It is kind of homoerotic. I mean, there’s something about the ad that’s a little bit, you know, odd to begin with. And then, of course, broadening that out, though, is I really feel strongly that, you know, men who are secure in their own masculinity don’t feel the need to shout about it from the rooftops everywhere they go and denigrate others. It’s small-minded. It makes him look small and it’s, it’s embarrassing.

So, I mean, sometimes when you see open hate like that, the best thing that you can do is condemn it. But also, you know, knock it down a few pegs. And this is just really silly. I mean, I can’t imagine what Americans are going to see this and have this change their mind. It might motivate Democratic voters to start paying attention. And I think if that’s what he succeeded in, that may be what we’re looking at.

WILLIE GEIST: I’m smiling because what a gay friend of mine saying “Was that an anti-gay ad? I saw a lot of Brad Pitt-looking hot…

MARA GAY: Yeah. There was a gladiator!

Watch above via MSNBC’s Morning Joe.