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Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and his Democratic challenger, Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, are sparring over Presley's stance on health care for transgender minors.
At issue is a bill Reeves signed into law in February that bans gender-affirming care for trans minors, and Reeves has brought up the issue as he runs for re-election this year.
In a TV ad that Reeves' campaign released last week, a narrator accuses Presley of supporting "sex changes and puberty blocking drugs for children."
The narrator adds, "Whatever the radical liberals want, Brandon Presley caves in."
In a statement released shortly after Reeves' ad began airing, Presley's campaign called the ad a "bald-faced lie."
"He is a desperate and failed governor who will say anything to get elected," Presley campaign communications director Michael Beyer added in the statement.
Reeves' ad features a video of Presley at a Mississippi Press Association event where a reporter asked, "Would you have signed the bill on the prohibition of sex change?"
The ad cuts the video off after that, but in an audio clip from the event the Presley campaign provided to NBC News, Presley says, "Here's the bottom line on that issue -- I trust families. I trust mamas and I trust daddies to deal with the health care of their children first and foremost, period ... Tate Reeves brings up this issue for one reason: It’s a smokescreen."
On Tuesday, the Presley campaign released its own TV ad, with Presley speaking directly into the camera, telling voters, "I don’t support gender surgery for minors or boys playing girls sports -- never have. And that won’t change when I’m governor."
Then, he blamed Reeves for using the issue to direct attention away from a welfare fraud scandal that shocked the state last year.
"Tate Reeves will say anything to protect his good old boy network and hide the fact that he’s caught up in the largest corruption scandal in the history of Mississippi," Presley said.