Here’s How Much Trump’s Extreme Transgender Ban Would Damage Military

Donald Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from the military would have a devastating effect: At least 15,000 members would be forced to leave.

Military charities, such as the Modern Military Association of America, warn the ban would hurt every branch of the armed forces at a time when they are struggling to recruit. Sources told The Telegraph that “people will be forced out at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people.”

“Only the Marine Corps is hitting its numbers for recruitment, and some people who will be affected are in very senior positions,” the source said.

Trump banned transgender people from the military during his first term, but the ban was lifted by President Biden after his inauguration. Around 2,200 service members were diagnosed with gender dysmorphia at that time, but today there isn’t an exact number of transgender people in the military because of privacy policies.

The president-elect’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has attacked the military as suffering from a “long-term infection of radical left wing social justice policies.” In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, he wrote that “affirmative action posts have skyrocketed, with ‘firsts’ being the most important factor in filling new commanders. We will not stop until trans-lesbian Black females run everything!”

That sentiment is in line with Trump’s own thinking, as he has complained about “woke generals” and is reportedly planning to sign an executive order to create a “warrior board” that would allow him to easily purge the military of leaders he doesn’t like.

Trump also plans to use the military to go after the “enemy within,” which encompasses his political enemies and anyone who stands in his way, and to carry out mass deportations. Both plans already have opposition from military leaders themselves, meaning that Trump will want to replace those leaders with more pliant sycophants. If he and Hegseth get their way, the next president will have dictator-level control of the military.

Donald Trump’s Christian nationalist, crusades-obsessed defense secretary nominee expects the military to mobilize against U.S. citizens in a civil war.

Pete Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox & Friends co-host, outlined a deeply troubling, extremist right-wing agenda for America’s future in his 2020 book, American Crusade.

“America will decline and die. A national divorce will ensue. Outnumbered freedom lovers will fight back,” Hegseth writes. “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

In another section, Hegseth writes that “our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must. Arm yourself—metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

This is deeply troubling rhetoric from the man who might be in charge of the Pentagon in a few months. Hegseth also continuously cites internal cultural threats that need to be eliminated, like socialism, secularism, environmentalism, Islamism, and genderism, and identifies the need to “defeat America’s internal enemies,” aligning seamlessly with Trump’s “enemy within” talking points. Hegseth’s nomination is currently in jeopardy over accusations that he sexually assaulted a woman in California in 2017.

The former Fox News host is the exact type of defense secretary Trump is looking for—little experience, complete loyalty, and a deep personal vendetta against anything outside a narrow right-wing vision for society. Hegseth drives this point home in American Crusade, ending the book with:

“See you on the battlefield. Together, with God’s help, we will save America. Deus vult!”

Steve Bannon took some time out of his usual War Room programming on Friday to lament a fallen soldier, a true MAGA martyr: failed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz.

“We took a casualty today,” said Bannon, referring to Donald Trump’s Cabinet pick stepping down amid allegations that he trafficked and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 sex party. “One of the best warriors we have in all his imperfections, and he’s quite imperfect, as Donald Trump is imperfect, as Stephen K. Bannon is super imperfect.”

In Bannon’s eyes it was the “deep state” that tanked his nomination, and not the fact that the House Ethics Committee reportedly had mounting evidence of Gaetz’s misconduct, including a history of Venmo payments for sex.

“It’s a big defeat for President Trump today. And trust me, those demons and jackals and hyenas up there in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell, that crowd, they know it. Yo. They know it,” Bannon fumed.

Other members of the Trumpsphere felt similarly dejected. “Trump getting elected was beyond epic, no doubt. But Gaetz as AG? That was the cherry on top,” War Room chief financial officer and chief operating officer Grace Chong wrote on X. “Not gonna lie, I might’ve been more hyped for that. But, Steve Bannon trained us well with ‘next man up.’ He really prepared us for this battle.”

“MAGA morale is way down currently. The only thing that can save it right now would be Kash Patel for FBI Director,” right-wing influencer Owen Shroyer posted on X.

Bannon, like much of MAGAworld, was initially overjoyed at the news of Gaetz for attorney general, warning everyone he didn’t like that they’d “better be worried.” The collective meltdown in response to Gaetz stepping down shows how much faith the far right placed in the former Florida representative to blindly carry out Trump’s agenda.

Elon Musk is so excited to start his new gig ruining the federal government that he’s getting an early start by goading his millions of followers to cyberbully government employees.

This week, Musk took aim at Ashley Thomas, the director of climate diversification for the U.S. International Finance Corporation—a highly technical role that involves developing ways of securing agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather, one agency official told The Wall Street Journal.

After a right-wing troll account posted on X drawing attention to Thomas’s position, Musk reposted it, noting that there were “So many fake jobs.” Ironic, coming from a CEO.

Speaking of fake jobs, last week, Donald Trump announced that Musk would be co-heading the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory board set on slashing the government budget by a trillion dollars, hoping to cut personnel and essential government services … so they can be snatched up by government contractors or outsourced to private companies … owned by billionaires … like Musk.

Musk’s decision to sic his millions of X followers on a specific individual, whose only crime seems to be having a job that Musk in all his infinite tech bro wisdom doesn’t understand, isn’t just cruel, it’s dangerous.

In 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, who was Twitter’s head of trust and safety, suggesting that Roth was endangering children, leading to his hordes of haters accusing Roth of being a pedophile and calling for his death. Roth was chased out of the company after Musk’s acquisition and had to relocate as a result of the billionaire’s cyber campaign.

Musk’s mob mayhem is also a sign of what’s to come.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Journal that Musk’s tactics are “aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees. It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.”

Kelley also pointed out that federal employees are a hell of a lot cheaper than government contractors.

The Texas Board of Education approved a new K–5 curriculum Friday permitting the instruction of the Bible in public schools.

The optional curriculum swap will offer school districts an additional $40 per pupil for using state-approved materials, which will add “Biblical and Christian lessons about Moses, the story of the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, readings from The Book of Genesis, and more,” reported ABC News.

The vote passed the Republican-controlled board by a vote of 8–7. The new curriculum could be implemented in the state’s elementary schools as early as next school year, according to NBC News.

Critics argue that the materials—and their employment in state public schools—is unconstitutional, violating the separation of church and state while forcing a singular religion on the population. They’ve also pointed to inaccuracies in the materials, which include claims that President Abraham Lincoln “and other leading abolitionists relied on a deep Christian faith,” despite the fact that Lincoln openly admitted to a lack of faith, sparking long-standing historical debate over his religious affiliation, if any.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott was a vocal proponent of the curriculum addition, writing in May that he believed the materials would allow students to “better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the American Revolution.”

Texas is the latest right-wing state to push Bibles into the classroom. Similar initiatives have swept schools in states such as Louisiana and Oklahoma, where Bibles and the Ten Commandments have become pillars of the state educational system. In Oklahoma, bid documents for tens of thousands of Bibles hinted that just one copy of the bestselling book of all time would do for the Sooner State’s students: Donald Trump’s $60-a-pop God Bless the U.S.A. Bible.

Donald Trump is taking yet another page out of the authoritarian playbook Project 2025—and it’s the one with a list of MAGA loyalists for hire.

After trying desperately, often unconvincingly, to distance his campaign from Project 2025’s unpopular, extremist policies, Trump’s transition team has been using the right-wing playbook’s staffing database to make appointments within the new administration, a source familiar told NBC News.

“There’s a lot of positions to fill and we continue to send names over, including ones from the database as they are conservative, qualified and vetted,” the source, who had worked on Project 2025, told NBC News. “Hard to find 4,000 solid people, so we are happy to help.”

Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025, once described his plans to make a “conservative Linkedin” containing information on thousands of potential hires for the Trump administration. He envisioned it as a personnel machine for rooting out the “deep state” and replacing federal employees with devoted MAGA loyalists.

Dans hoped his system would allow Trump to make big changes fast. “If a person can’t get in and fire people right away, what good is political management?” Dans said in December.

Earlier this week, Trump nominated Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist with ties to Project 2025, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. He also nominated Brendan Carr, who wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the Federal Communications Commission, to head that government agency.

Last week, Trump nominated John Ratcliffe, another Project 2025 author, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Donald Trump is expected to appoint former Senator Kelly Loeffler as Secretary of Agriculture, CNN reported Friday.

Loeffler previously served as Georgia senator after she was appointed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in 2019 to fill the seat vacated by Senator Johnny Isakson, who resigned for health reasons. She ran in a 2020 special election to hold the seat but was defeated by Democrat Raphael Warnock. She was a staunch election denier, objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, but she later voted to certify the results after the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

A former business executive, Loeffler was among Trump’s top billionaire donors during his 2024 campaign, contributing more than $4.9 million to his reelection effort. Trump chose her to chair his upcoming inauguration, and is set to meet with her Friday at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to CNN.

Loeffler said earlier this week that she would welcome the appointment, saying on the Politically Georgia podcast that “I grew up on a farm and I’m still actively involved in agriculture. I’m a huge advocate for rural America, and most of my bills that I passed in Congress were rural healthcare funding & related bills.”

During her time in Congress, she was considered the wealthiest person in the legislative body, and had to fend off accusations of insider trading and dumping stocks after receiving early briefings about the potential of the Covid-19 pandemic. She’s married to a former chairman of The New York Stock Exchange, Jeffrey Sprecher, and the two have an estimated combined net worth of more than $1 billion.

Sprecher and Loeffler also have business ties to Trump. The president-elect’s social media venture, Trump Media & Technology, is reportedly buying cryptocurrency trading firm Bakkt, Sprecher is now the CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, which backs the crypto firm, and Loeffler is a former CEO of Bakkt. Loeffler’s appointment to a cabinet position is sure to raise questions about it being part of a business deal with Trump, but he’s never been concerned about mixing his finances with politics.

This story has been updated.

It seems that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un isn’t interested in reviving his relationship with Donald Trump this time.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Kim is unenthusiastic about reviving talks with the United States during Trump’s second term, expressing skepticism during a speech Thursday about what could actually be achieved.

“We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the U.S.,” Kim reportedly said at a Pyongyang defense expo. He added that America’s “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward North Korea is clear.

Kim also called the U.S. a superpower that prefers the use of force to coexistence, claiming that the previous negotiations during the Trump administration didn’t lead anywhere. Plus, the Journal reports that North Korea doesn’t have as big of a need for sanctions relief as it did during the Trump years, having expanded its nuclear arsenal and strengthened economic and military ties with Russia.

Today, Kim is just not that into Trump anymore. He doesn’t have much of a willingness to disarm and passed a law allowing the country to make preemptive nuclear strikes. Vladimir Putin is giving Kim things Trump cannot: military technology as well as diplomatic protection at the United Nations Security Council.

But Trump and Putin also have a disturbingly close relationship, meaning that there still may be a path open for the president-elect to pursue better relations with North Korea. Lest we forget, Trump’s talks with Kim during his first term started with “love letters” before falling apart and devolving into insults and threats. Trump still reminisces about those early days and, referring to Kim, said, “I think he misses me” at the July Republican National Convention.

It doesn’t seem that Kim has the same fond memories as Trump, though, making new talks unlikely unless the president-elect convinces Putin to facilitate things and Kim comes around on the idea. But that seems implausible when the effort last time resulted in North Korea calling Trump a “dotard” and a “heedless and erratic man.”

Even Newsmax is turning its back on Representative Nancy Mace’s transphobic bathroom stunt.

Speaking with Indiana Representative Erin Houchin about Mace’s recent efforts to keep Representative-elect Sarah McBride—the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress—out of the Capitol complex’s women’s restrooms, the far-right network’s hosts struggled to point to any statistics that actually warranted the conspiracy.

“Do you have any idea how often an attack happens involving a trans person in a restroom? I haven’t heard of any cases at all,” pressed Newsmax host Katie McCall.

“Just because there aren’t cases of attack doesn’t mean that having a man in a woman’s facility is not a violation of their privacy,” Houchin said, before referring to an instance in 2023 when police were called on a 50-year-old transgender swimmer in a women’s locker room—in Canada.

Statistically speaking, the threat that transgender people pose to the sanctity of public restrooms is zilch. A 2018 study from the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that bathroom-related nondiscrimination laws pose practically no risk to women, and that claims to the contrary are little more than myths that are “not empirically grounded.”

Even Mace’s own ex-staffers have gone nuclear on her over the transphobic stunt on McBride. On Wednesday, the lawmaker’s former communications director Natalie Johnson said that Mace’s attacks on McBride were little more than a “ploy to get on Fox.”

“Tweeting 262 times about a bill that applies to like .00000001% of Congress in 36 hours is definitely about protecting women. It’s certainly not just a ploy for media attention,” Johnson tweeted.

Scandal-ridden former representative and failed attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz has pledged not to rejoin Congress. We can all only hope he keeps that promise.

In an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show on Friday, Gaetz told the right-wing shill that he will be fighting for President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda “from a new perch.”

“I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” Gaetz said. “There are a number of fantastic Floridians who’ve stepped up to run for my seat, people who have inspired with their heroism, with their public service. And I’m actually excited to see northwest Florida go to new heights and have great representation.”

Gaetz resigned from the 118th Congress days before a House Ethics Committee was set to wrap up its probe into allegations that he trafficked and had sex with a 17-year-old girl at a sex party. Gaetz fervently denied the allegations, even resigning from Congress last week as evidence piled up. While the probe has still yet to be released, the House Ethics Committee reportedly obtained documents that showed Gaetz’s payment to the 17-year-old girl on Venmo. Multiple Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, said they had qualms with Gaetz’s nomination, and Gaetz finally announced he would not pursue the attorney general nomination after CNN reported the House Ethics Committee somehow had even more evidence against him.

Gaetz is still eligible to serve in the 119th Congress, even though he told Kirk he won’t. He could still run to be reelected to his own seat or hope that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appoints him to take Marco Rubio’s spot as senator after Trump nominated Rubio for secretary of state.

Trump has pegged his loyalist former impeachment hearing attorney Pam Bondi as Gaetz’s replacement for attorney general. And in Florida, a woman equally strange and bigoted as Gaetz—Michelle Salzman—is set to run for his open seat.