Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis and other conservative critics took aim at former president Donald Trump for hedging this week on the explosive issue of transgenderism — and refusing to give a clear answer on whether he believes it’s possible to change one’s sex .
Trump responded with a long-drawn-out “Ummm” and an uncomfortable laugh when host Megyn Kelly, in a Thursday interview on her “The Megyn Kelly Show” on Sirius XM, asked: “Can a man become a woman?”
“In my opinion,” he finally said, shaking his head slightly, “you have a man, you have a woman.”
“I, I, I think part of it is birth,” he continued.
“Can the man give birth? No.”
But he seemed to leave the door open on that criterion.
“They’ll come up with some answer to that also someday,” Trump went on.
“I heard just the other day they have a way that now the man can give birth. No, I would say I’ll continue my stance on that.”
Former President Donald Trump refused to give a clear answer on whether he believes it’s possible to change one’s sex in his interview with Megyn Kelly.Youtube
His feeble answer drew derision from conservatives.
“Don’t tell me a man can become a woman because it’s not true,” DeSantis said Friday in a speech to the Concerned Women for America in Washington, DC.
“Don’t tell me a man can get pregnant because it’s not true.”
“There is value in standing up for what is true,” the Florida governor said in comments that did not call out Trump by name.
Trump spoke at the Family Research Council’s Pray Vote Stand Summit on Friday.AP
“And what woke agenda is, is it represents a war on the truth itself.”
Longtime Trump antagonist Erick Erickson joined in.
“When a former president cannot and does not immediately say ‘no’ when asked if a man can become a woman, he does not need to be president again,” the right-wing commentator posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Trump’s halting exchange with Kelly came moments after he railed against puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.
Transgender rights, and especially the question of cross-sex hormones and surgeries for minors, are explosive issues in the 2024 presidential campaign.AP
“I’m so against it,” Trump said of what he called “the mutilation of children.”
“Many of them, I’ve heard like 62%, when they grow up, when they’re older, they say, Who did this to me? Why did you do this to me?”
Trump insisted that his stance on the issue has never wavered — even though he allowed biological men to compete in the Miss Universe pageant when he owned it.
“I don’t think I’ve changed,” he said.
Megyn Kelly flummoxed Trump by asking him, “Can a man become a woman?”Youtube
“I think I just, you know, at the beginning it was such a small subject.”
The wide-ranging interview — Kelly’s first sit-down with the former president since they clashed during a Republican debate in 2016 — sparked uproar over Trump’s claim to have no idea who gave Dr. Anthony Fauci a Trump-signed presidential commendation for spearheading the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic.