Trump claimed that gay people ‘like the job’ he’s doing. Yes, really
Donald Trump actually thinks that LGBT+ people “like the job he’s doing”.
While speaking to reporters on Tuesday, August 20, The Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson asked: “Mr President, your administration has been taking steps to make it easier to discriminate against LGBT people in the workforce. Are you OK with those actions?”
The question referenced Trump’s official proposal this month of a rule to allow organisations to bypass anti-discrimination laws on religious grounds.
Trump did not answer the question, but instead replied: “Well, you know, I just got an award and an endorsement yesterday from the, um, exec group. The group, they gave me the endorsement yesterday.”
Trump at first seemed not to remember the name of the Log Cabin Republicans, a LGBT+ group within the Republican Party who endorsed the president’s reelection campaign earlier this week.
The move caused board member Jennifer Horn to resign, saying she wouldn’t be able to ‘look her children in the eye’ if she didn’t.
“I was very honoured to – is it Log Cabin? The Log Cabin Group – I was very honoured to receive it,” Trump continued.
“I’ve done very well with that community. Some of my biggest supporters are of that community and I talk to them a lot about it. I think I’ve done really very well with that community.
“As you know, Peter Thiel and so many others are with me all the way and they like the job I’m doing. I just got a big endorsement from the Log Cabin Group.”
Peter Thiel is a gay billionaire who co-founded PayPal and endorsed Trump before his 2016 election. Thiel joined anti-LGBT+ activists as part of his presidential transition team executive committee.
Nancy Pelosi previously said Trump’s proposed rule was “blatantly bigoted and downright dangerous”.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi previously said in a statement that the proposed rule for allowing legal discrimination against LGBT+ people on religious grounds is “cruel,” “bigoted” and “dangerous”.
She said: “This hateful rule would green light open discrimination against tens of millions of Americans in the workplace, using taxpayer dollars to throw into jeopardy their safety, financial security and well-being.
“From day one, this administration has tried to inflict a campaign of intolerance against the American people… Bigotry has no place in our nation.”