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Continuing my review of Trump's many acts of disrespect to veterans and service members today. Back to 2017, just a few months after taking office he sat on his toilet at 7:00 AM and kicked thousands of patriotic service members out of uniform in 3 tweets over 15 minutes. Thread!
With Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation yesterday the rights of LGBQT+ Americans are in focus again and Trump has shown he's willing to trample their rights to appease his evangelical/conservative base. He wasted no time as POTUS making a heinous attack on the community in July 17.
In a surprise early morning tweet thread spread over 13 tense minutes Trump lied and said he had consulted with his "generals" and decided to implement a ban on the service of transgender individuals. The news shocked the Pentagon and service members.
This decision came after studies by DOD, including a landmark RAND study in 2016, found little negative implications, relatively low costs and that foreign militaries had seen virtually no negative impacts to allowing transgender citizens to serve. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1530.html
According to multiple reports he hadn't consulted DOD or the Joint Chiefs and they were blindsided by the announcement that broke all procedures for such a massive change in regs. He simply tweeted it out causing chaos as SecDef Mattis was on vacation. https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/trump-military-transgender-ban-joint-chiefs/index.html
This was the first of what has become a routine of ignoring proper processes for issuing orders to the military but using his Twitter feed instead. This has literally forced the Pentagon to monitor his Twitter for surprises and creates constant chaos. https://taskandpurpose.com/pentagon-run-down/pentagon-chaos-trump-tweets
This act is monstrous in its implications. A Commander-in-Chief who dodged service banned as many as 15,000 or more honorably serving volunteers who dedicated their lives to the nation simply because of bigotry and religious extremism. It's cowardice. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/12/revealed-how-trumps-transgender-ban-has-forced-military-members-back-into-hiding
Trump and his enablers have tried to frame the issue around the cost of transition surgeries and medications. The weakness of this argument is highlighted by the fact that the total cost is literally less than a tenth of what DOD spends on Viagra annually. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-tweets-transgender-military-service-ban/579655/
Trump did this because a group of House conservatives had been threatening to withhold support for a defense-authorization bill that included border-wall funding unless the military stopped covering the costs of gender-reassignment surgery for troops. This is about his damn wall.
So, a coward who never served decided to kick thousands out of uniform as we struggle to fill the ranks so he could get his racist vanity project funded. Trump has proven he cares little for those who serve. His transgender ban is another outrageous example. #LincolnProject
I could go on about the idea that Trump has ignored the National Security Council and undermined our military chain of command with his erratic behavior and leadership by tweet as well. In the end, our troops deserve a POTUS that respects them and their welfare. Trump isn't it.
