Donald Trump speaks at the America First Policy Institute annual summit. (YouTube)
Donald Trump has suggested he will run for president in 2024 while on an anti-trans rant, describing LGBTQ+ rights as “social decay”.
Trump made the comments in a speech at the first annual summit of the America First Policy Institute, a right-wing Republican non-profit, on Tuesday (26 July).
In an erratic rant, he referred to LGBTQ-inclusive education and healthcare for trans folk, and said: “Federal, state, and local government should aggressively enforce existing statutes to stop the perverted sexualization of minor children. You have the statutes.“
“The society that refuses to protect its children is a society that soon will not be able to protect anybody,“ Trump continued.
“This is a hallmark of cultural and social decay against which we should fight back very hard and very soon, we don’t have time to wait years to do this.“
Despite devoting much of his speech on healthcare for trans youth, Trump admitted that he had no idea what he was talking about.
He continued: “The sickos who are pushing sexual content in kindergartens or providing puberty blockers to young children who have no idea what a puberty blocker is – neither do I, by the way, neither do most of the people in the audience…
“Let’s just say they’re not good – are not just engaged in acts of depravity, in many cases they are breaking the law and they should be held fully accountable.”
Donald Trump said trans swimmer Lia Thomas has a 30-foot wingspan
Donald Trump then moved on to trans athletes, misgendering swimmer Lia Thomas and confusingly claiming that she had a “wingspan of 30 feet” – which, for context, would mean that each of her arms was the length of a giraffe.
He went on to tell a mysterious story of a “beautiful woman“ and swimmer who wanted to break a record, but said that Thomas was so fast that she “gave her major wind burn” as she swam past.
Trump also told a story about a trans weightlifter called “Alice” who broke the women’s world record for clean and jerk, and held that record for years. As far as anyone can tell, no one matching his description exists.
But more worrying than all of the anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda spouted by Trump was the suggestion that he might run for president in 2024.
He told the summit: “I ran the first time and I won. Then I ran a second time and I did much better. We got millions and millions more votes.
“We may just have to do it again.“