Trump Jr claims China laughing at US military for promoting transgender pilots

Donald Trump Jr has claimed that China is laughing at the US military for promoting the rights of transgender pilots.

“What do you think our enemies are doing? They’re laughing,” Mr Trump Jr said during a speech at Turning Point USA’s Americafest on Sunday in Phoenix, Arizona.

Turning Point USA is an organisation pushing for conservative ideas on high school and college campuses. The group is organising “AmericaFest” – a pro-Trump four-day event featuring speakers such as Mr Trump Jr, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro, and Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Conservatives are attending the event even as Covid-19 is wreaking havoc across the US. The seven-day average of daily new cases in Arizona was more than 3,000 on 18 December, up from just over 500 in early July. The seven-day average of daily new cases for the entire US was almost 128,000 on 18 December.

“You think China is thinking about ‘we got to make sure you have plenty of trans pilots’,” Mr Trump Jr added.

“By the way, I’m 100 per cent fine with it ... if they were the best pilots,” he continued. “But that is not their focus, right? It’s not about finding the best ones.”

The Department of the Air Force issued new policies in April with the aim of providing more equal treatment of transgender airmen and guardians who are going through a gender change, The Air Force Times reported in May.

“Service in the Air Force and Space Force should be open to all persons who can meet the high standards for military service and readiness,” a policy document from 30 April said.

“All service members and applicants for accession must be treated with dignity and respect and afforded equal opportunity in an environment free from prohibited discrimination.”

The Air Force and Space Force were the first military services to reissue their transgender policies after the Biden administration reversed the Trump administration ban on gender transitions for service members.

“Just like when they talk about the breakdown of the labour force between men and women. Why don’t they ever talk about that there’s a grossly underrepresented portion of ... female bricklayers,” Mr Trump Jr said mockingly. “I think that’s a disgrace.”

“And yet they would have you believe that it is. So that’s why we have to band together folks. The pendulum has swung so far. It is overcorrected,” Mr Trump Jr said. “The mainstream left has lost their minds.”

“There was a time where the Democrats actually represented hard-working men and women. That is true. That’s a long time ago. I agree. Not during my lifetime,” he added. “They’ve been able to carry forward the brand from 70 years ago, to fairly recently as though that was still true, but it’s not right.”

Earlier during his speech, Mr Trump Jr said that his “alma mater is leading the charge in some of the wokeism today”.

Mr Trump Jr graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000.

“Have you seen that female swimmer?” he asked the crowd.

Parents have asked that the NCAA rules be changed to prevent swimmer Lia Thomas from taking part in future races. They said the current rules are a “direct threat to female athletes in every sport”.

Ms Thomas swam on the men’s team for three years before announcing she’s transgender in 2019, the New York Post reported. She has since broken several records.

“At first I was like ‘maybe it was like a Wharton School of Finance thing like they’re figuring out how to arbitrage wins in women’s swimming’,” Mr Trump Jr said.

“You want to know the best way that seems to do that? Bring in a male swimmer! But what’s even scarier is that there are women who work their asses off ... they spent their lives trying to reach the pinnacle of success in a sport only to be beaten by 38 seconds in the 500 freestyle,” he added.