President Trump’s unexpected announcement Wednesday that the military would no longer accept transgender service members left many in the administration wondering why he had suddenly arrived at such a conclusion and how he planned to implement such a consequential policy.
Republicans on Capitol Hill acknowledged Wednesday that the White House had been reviewing whether taxpayers should fund gender reassignment treatments as GOP lawmakers in the House debated a provision in their spending bill that would block the Pentagon from paying for the surgeries.
But none said they expected the president to come out so forcefully against all transgender military service, and many publicly expressed dismay at the way Trump handled the sensitive political issue.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders could not answer questions on Wednesday about whether transgender service members who are already deployed would be recalled home and could not predict when the Pentagon would issue guidance explaining its shift away from the Obama-era policy.
“Look, I think sometimes you have to make decisions,” Sanders told reporters at the White House. “And once [Trump] made a decision, he didn’t feel it was necessary to hold that decision.”
Trump’s surprising decision, unveiled in a series of tweets early Wednesday morning, baffled his allies all the more because the White House had opposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act put forward by Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., that would have prevented the Pentagon from paying for transgender medical treatments.
The amendment was defeated on July 13 when two dozen Republicans joined with Democrats in voting it down, but the issue has resurfaced in House discussions of a larger spending bill.
Hartzler told the Washington Examiner that a “significant number of members” were clamoring for a resolution to the hot-button issue, which had divided conservative and centrist Republicans.
“We needed to settle this issue,” she said.
While Hartzler said she and other conservatives had hoped the president would support their efforts to limit the Pentagon’s embrace of transgender service members, she said “we didn’t know the exact timing” of when Trump would reveal a decision.
Trump’s tweets ultimately ruffled feathers among Republican lawmakers.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., criticized the president’s statement as “unclear” and questioned why Trump would consider forcing transgender service members who had already undergone training to leave the force. The White House has yet to explain what will happen to the thousands of transgender service members presently serving in the military.
Trump unveiled his decision on transgender service members on a day when Defense Secretary James Mattis was away on vacation, further stoking speculation that the policy change did not have the full backing of the Pentagon. Sanders said Wednesday that Mattis was “immediately informed” that the president had chosen to move forward with the ban this week, and she suggested Trump had leaned more heavily on his national security team to shape the decision than he had on his defense secretary.
A House aide told the Washington Examiner that Mattis called Hartzler to discuss concerns about transgender military service on July 13, when her amendment to the NDAA failed.
“At no time did Vicky receive any assurances from the secretary that this issue would be addressed,” the aide said of their conversation.
The Republican aide hinted that the transgender military policy was poised to become a sticking point in talks about the spending bill before Trump’s tweets. “There were several members who indicated they would not support the bill unless the transgender policy was addressed,” he said.
Although Vice President Mike Pence was linked in several reports this week to a behind-the-scenes lobbying effort against Pentagon coverage for transgender medical services, a spokesman for the vice president told Foreign Policy on Tuesday that Pence “has been focused on healthcare.”
“I am not aware of him speaking to any members about this,” the spokesman said.
Other White House aides refused to comment Wednesday about the timing of or reasoning for the president’s sudden and severe turn against transgender military service, which appeared to go further than the limited funding restrictions for which conservative lawmakers had been advocating. Their silence comes amid a staffing shakeup in the White House communications office that has so far seen two aides, including outgoing press secretary Sean Spicer, resign their positions.
Incoming communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who does not officially begin his new job until Aug. 15, has threatened to fire any staffer suspected of leaking as he reconfigures the White House press shop to be more aggressive and more personally loyal to the president. His efforts have had an apparent chilling effect on press aides, obscuring from public view many of the changes that Scaramucci is likely installing in the West Wing.
Trump’s transgender tweets also provided a brief distraction from his protracted feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which has threatened to alienate many of the president’s conservative supporters who have long held Sessions as the fiercest advocate for their immigration agenda.
Trump has excoriated Sessions over the past week in interviews, tweets and public remarks for the attorney general’s decision four months ago to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian meddling.
Sanders said Wednesday that Trump and Sessions have not spoken this week even though the attorney general journeyed to the White House earlier in the day for a meeting with other senior officials.
A source close to Sessions’ team told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the attorney general is unlikely to resign over the tensions.
“I think he’s staying,” the source said.
But Scaramucci hinted Wednesday evening that the tensions between Trump and Sessions would likely reach a boiling point as soon as next week.
