Former GOP guv defends veto of law targeting trans youth in interview with Tucker Carlson

Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson (R) isn’t the most popular GOP presidential candidate. He was booed and heckled on stage at the Turning Point Action conference. Sometimes his campaign appearances only draw a half dozen people.

But former President Donald Trump’s staunch foe continues his quixotic battle to the top, insisting that the Republican party will come to its senses and choose him over Trump. And he’s taking his message of practical governance to some surprising — and often unfriendly — places.

Related:

Concerned father arrested while peacefully testifying against Arkansas trans health care ban

Chris Attig was arrested for going 30 seconds over their allotted two minutes to speak. The anti-LGBTQ hate group representative who spoke before them talked for 40 minutes.

After being attacked by Trump, and others, Hutchinson called on his fellow Republicans to show “compassion” towards trans people and their loved ones after a wave of anti-trans legislation swept the country.

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“It is compassionate to say we care for all our young people – whether they’re trans youth or otherwise – we care for them, and that’s the message of compassion and conservatism that we need to have as a party,” Hutchinson said in 2021.

“It’s a conservative position to say that’s not the role of government… it is compassionate to say we care for all our young people – whether they’re trans youth or otherwise – we care for them, and that’s the message of compassion and conservatism that we need to have as a party,” he stated.

And when the Republican-led state legislature passed a law that banned gender-affirming care for minors, Hutchinson vetoed it. Arkansas’s law forbade doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone treatment, or surgeries to people under 18 (even though such surgeries aren’t performed on minors) and from referring patients to other places to receive such care.

A federal judge recently struck down the law as unconstitutional. During an interview with Tucker Carlson at the anti-LGBTQ Family Leadership Summit, the former governor made sure to tout his foresight.

“Well, we’ll see, but I hope what people see is that I’m an independent thinker. I evaluated this, and there’s a gray area where you got to draw a line. I thought this went too far,” Hutchinson said when Carlson asked about his veto. Hutchinson’s defense was all the more remarkable considering how transphobic Carlson and Turning Point USA both are.

“The courts have held it unconstitutional, and that parents have the key responsibility here,” Hutchinson continued. “Obviously, you got to draw the line even with parents, but when you’re talking about medical care — whether you’re talking about vaccines that the children take or whether you’re talking about the most sensitive issues that they face, you know, in gender — then the parents have a big role to play. So I sided with parents. I sided with the Constitution, and the courts upheld that.”