Trump Claims He Banned Trans Troops Because 'Drugs'

By Rafi Schwartz  |  June 5, 2019 | 1:35pm
White House

President Donald Trump started winding down his less-than-thrilling state visit to the United Kingdom on Wednesday with a sit-down interview with one of England’s worst global exports, Piers Morgan. Over the course of the more than half-hour conversation, aired on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Trump claimed he banned transgender troops because they take so many “drugs,” equated climate change and weather, and talked Meghan Markle.

Asked about the hypocrisy of proclaiming his support for the LBGTQ community during Pride even as his administration carries out a ban on transgender troops in the U.S. military, Trump claimed the real issue was “drugs,” insisting that you’re not allowed to take prescriptions in the service.

“They take massive amounts of drugs,” Trump said. “They have to, and also—and you’re not allowed to take drugs, you’re in the military, you’re not allowed to take any drugs, you take an aspirin… and they have to, after the operation, they have to, they have no choice, they have to. You would actually have to break rules and regulations to have that.”

When Morgan pointed out that the Pentagon forks over tons of money to subsidize Viagra for servicemen—dwarfing the cost of medical care for trans troops—Trump nevertheless insisted “I didn’t know they did that,” adding, “It is what it is.”

Then here was Trump, uh, clarifying his comments about Meghan Markle, whom he called “nasty,” and then his campaign demanded the public listen to a clip of him calling her “nasty” as proof positive that he didn’t actually call her “nasty.”

“I wasn’t referring to ‘she’s nasty,’ I said ‘she’s nasty about me,’” Trump insisted in a genuinely impressive logic puzzle.

The president also did a complete 180 from his earlier, slightly befuddled assertion that the UK’s National Health Service would be on the table in any future trade negotiations.

Oh, and speaking of 180s, Trump—who has previously insisted that global warming was a Chinese plot—also floated some climate denialism.

“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” he said. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.”

Oh, and president also wore a hat.

A great time had by all!

If you’d like to pulverize your brain with the complete interview, you can do so below:

 
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