Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hammered former President Donald Trump over his recent response on transgender issues.
During a wide-ranging interview, Megyn Kelly and Trump discussed the advanced age of President Joe Biden, the immigration crisis, the indictments, and a look back at the former president’s guidance of the COVID vaccine development under Operation Warp Speed.
Trump was also asked about transgender issues on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
Kelly noted that Trump declared in 2016 that Caitlyn Jenner would be free to use any bathroom Jenner wanted if Jenner walked into Trump Tower.
Kelly highlighted how in 2012, Trump partnered with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to allow transgender models to compete for the Miss Universe Canada title. At the time, Trump owned the Miss Universe franchise.
She asked if Trump has changed his opinion on transgender issues since 2016.
“Yeah, well, I have,” Trump responded, then quickly shifted the topic to his ban on transgender soldiers in the U.S. military.
Trump said about his policy on transgender individuals being allowed in spaces for women, “My stance on that is really pretty much what I had in the military.”
However, Trump said of Caitlyn Jenner, “I may have allowed Caitlyn. Caitlyn is Caitlyn. I knew Caitlyn as Bruce. I knew Bruce. Bruce was a great athlete and a very handsome person and a very handsome guy. And all of a sudden, Bruce is Caitlyn.”
When asked if he would institute a ban on puberty blockers for minors, Trump responded, “I think yes. Yes. Yes. I would.”
Kelly then asked, “Can a man become a woman?”
There was a slight delay before Trump said, “Um,” and then chuckled.
“In my opinion, you have a man, you have a woman,” Trump continued. “I think part of it is birth. Can that man give birth? No, no.”
DeSantis slammed Trump for his answer during a Friday appearance at the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee’s leadership summit.
“Some people say we should leave woke alone,” DeSantis began.
“Let me tell you, there is value in standing up for what is true,” DeSantis continued. “And what the woke agenda is is it represents a war on the truth itself.”
“Don’t tell me a man can become a woman because it’s not true,” DeSantis proclaimed. “Don’t tell me a man can get pregnant because it’s not true.”
The Republican governor concluded, “And we’re not going to root our society in things that are false. The truth will set you free.”
Trump is scheduled to speak at the summit on Friday night.
Kelly criticized Trump’s answer by calling it “wishy-washy.”
Kelly told GB News of Trump’s response, “I would have liked it to have been stronger. I thought it was a little bit too wishy-washy. I was glad he said it, I pressed him on substantively, are you for men who claim they’re women going into women’s spaces, and he said no.”
She added, “I don’t need to see this from Donald Trump; he needs to work on this and say what Ron DeSantis says, which is: ‘No, a man cannot become a woman.'”
During “The Megyn Kelly Show” interview, Trump attacked DeSantis over pandemic policies.
Trump falsely claimed that Florida under DeSantis “sort of had a mandate” on COVID-19 vaccines. DeSantis never imposed any COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Trump also incorrectly claimed that South Carolina and Tennessee didn’t shut down at the beginning of the pandemic.
DeSantis fired back at Trump during a recent interview on the “Steve Deace Show” on TheBlaze and called some of the former president’s attacks on him as “drivel.”
“He used to praise Florida for having been open,” DeSantis said of Trump. “He used to say I was one of the country’s great governors. He said we handled COVID correctly and brilliantly.”
DeSantis told host Steve Deace, “Now because I’m a threat to him, that’s when he’s now changing his tune.”
“A lot of the attacks that I suffered from through the balance of 2020 was the media in Florida leveraging the Trump White House against me and saying, ‘Oh, the governor isn’t following the Trump White House directives. He has restaurants open, he has schools open, he has all that stuff,'” DeSantis proclaimed. “So they really used that White House Task Force as a cudgel to try to beat me over the head to try to portray me as being reckless because we had opened the state and we were doing all that.”
DeSantis said he fought against Dr. Anthony Fauci “when he was popular” and pointed out that Trump presented Fauci with a presidential commendation on his last day in office.
DeSantis said of the 2020 Trump campaign, “And his campaign for re-election, in October of 2020, they were running videos where Fauci is bragging that ‘Donald Trump did everything I told him to do.’ They were putting that out as a positive message for their candidate.”
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