The president said he’ll sign a series of executive orders which could dramatically reshape the U.S. military, potentially ending the careers of thousands of active duty troops while reinstating thousands of others removed for failing to follow orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Donald Trump, while addressing a House GOP Conference meeting held at Trump National Doral Miami on Monday, said he would direct his newly installed Secretary of Defense to develop a policy regarding service members who identify as transgender and to end any sort of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policy employed by the Department.
“To ensure that we have the most lethal fighting force in the world, we will get transgender ideology the hell out of our military. It’s gonna be gone,” Trump said Monday.
“In addition, we will stop our service members from being indoctrinated with radical left ideologies such as critical race theories,” he continued.
Trump did not indicate whether his order would include an outright ban on transgendered people serving in the military. It is also unclear precisely how many troops identify as transgender, though the Associated Press has estimated it may be upwards of 14,000 service members, or less than 1% of the U.S. military.
At the same time, the recently re-inaugurated second-term U.S. president said he would order reinstatement — with full back pay — for thousands of troops separated from the service after they were ordered to take the COVID-19 vaccine but refused. That order could impact upwards of 8,000 former U.S. service members separated between August 2021 through January 2023.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of people that join,” Trump said.
Trump also said he would direct the DoD to “immediately begin the construction of a state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield” much like the one used by Israel.
“We protect other countries, but we don’t protect ourselves,” Trump said.
If some of these orders cause some measure of déjà vu, that’s because Trump took aim at transgendered troops during his first term and again last week after swearing the oath of office. He also issued an DEI order last week.
Trump’s original first-term plan to remove transgendered troops was stopped by legal challenges, and then overturned by former President Joe Biden with an executive order of his own. The order Trump issued shortly after taking office rescinded Biden’s order allowing transgender people to join the military and serve openly as the gender of their choosing.
Part of the reasoning behind one of Monday’s orders was further clarify what the president meant in his original directives, which had the apparently unattended consequence of seeing information concerning the Tuskegee Airman and the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, removed from military training courses as Department of Defense personnel rushed to comply with the president’s earlier order.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Sunday via social media that information was taken out of training courses by mistake and its removal “immediately reversed.”
Herald wire services contributed.