This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Who would have thought that Donald Trump would have a tough time answering the question: "Can a man become a woman?"
But last week, Trump bungled that question, in a Sept. 20 interview with Megyn Kelly, raising concerns among social conservatives and giving ammunition to those who claim he is weak on cultural issues, including abortion. Asked directly by Kelly on her SiriusXM show: "Can a man become a woman?" the 45th president responded with a long "Ummm," then chuckled, and then said the following:
"In my opinion, you have a man, you have a woman. I ... think part of it is birth. Can the man give birth? No, no, although they'll come up with some answer to that also (Kelly chuckles). I heard just the other day they have a way that the man can give birth! No. I would say, I'll continue my stance on that."
The question came in a part of the interview dealing with transgender issues, in which Trump affirmed his tough stance against the trans agenda, in which he:
Backers of Trump's ally and now rival Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly went to conservative media and X to contrast Trump's hesitant response to the question, "Can a man become a woman?" to DeSantis' matter-of-fact response when asked the same question. When Beck asked the Florida governor in an interview, "Let me ask you something: Can a man become a woman?" DeSantis answered: "No. How ridiculous that we're even asking that question."
DeSantis sent out an X post with a video of his response to Beck under the words: "That was easy." The conservative governor, who is still in second place but remains far behind the former president in polls, has sought to make an issue of Trump's past social liberalism, as well as Trump wavering on pro-life legislation in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision striking down Roe v. Wade.
But Trump supporters said his record is clear against transgender activism is clear and accused DeSantis – who has struggled to move his poll numbers – of desperately trying to sully Trump's record to score political points. Here is an X post by Trump supporter "JoMa" containing the full portion of the Kelly interview dealing with transgender topics:
In her own interview with Beck, Kelly – who is now an emboldened opponent of the transgender activist lobby – called Trump's response to her simple question about changing sex "weak sauce" and said, "I really wish he did better on that."
“I like Ron DeSantis' answer – I’m going to be honest – which is ‘no, no, no! Obviously no!'” she told Beck. “I don’t know if he’s [Trump is] trying to appease some group of trans voters that he thinks is going to make the difference with him. Even when I had Don Jr. [Trump's son] on my show, he was kinda' dancing around this issue. I think they think they're somehow going to be better with Democrats if they don't hit this straight on. Even though ...98 percent of the Republican Party is united on this issue. ... It is NOT a winner for any Republican to hedge on this.” u
On the larger question of Trump's softened rhetoric, here is Beck and Kelly discussing Trump's attempt, as Beck describes it, to appear more moderate in the assumption that the primary is essentially "over" and he is appealing to a general election audience. Note Kelly's take on whether that strategy will work:
You can watch Kelly's full, 67-minute interview with Trump here. Kelly's questions about transgender topics begin at the 28:40 mark. Trump's answer to "Can a man become a woman?" is at the 32:33 mark:
