Gay conservative says Trump losing his edge because he remained calm when talking about trans people

Conservative pundit Dave Rubin said that Donald Trump is losing his political edge because Trump didn’t explode in anger when asked whether transgender people exist.

In a recent interview, SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly asked Trump, “Can a man become a woman?”

Related:

Gay conservative Dave Rubin says it’s a compliment when anti-LGBTQ Christians say they pray for him

He said he doesn’t know if they’re praying to turn him straight or praying for his “continued success,” but he’s just happy they’re praying for him.

“Ummmmm,” Trump said before chuckling. “I think part of it is birth, can the man give birth? No? Although they’ll come up with some answer to that also!”

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“I heard just the other day, they have a way that now the man can give birth!”

Trump has a terrible record on transgender rights, which includes banning transgender people from serving openly in the military, passing rules to legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and removing federal guidance protecting transgender students from discrimination in school.

His answer to Kelly appears to be a fairly standard line for transphobes: he defined womanhood based on some aspect of reproduction (birth, in this case) and then pointed out that trans women don’t meet his standard for womanhood. He also completely ignored the existence of trans men, as transphobes often do.

While he did mention a recent story about a uterus transplant in the U.K., his point was that trans women aren’t women.

But Rubin, who is gay, wanted Trump to get mad at Kelly for even asking the question.

“I want to be clear on something: a man cannot have a baby,” Rubin said on Paul Murray Live on Sky News. “A man can also not turn into a woman.”

“It does show to some extent that he’s beginning to lose his step,” Rubin said. “Because the Donald Trump that was the insurgent Donald Trump of 2015, or even the president of, let’s say, mid-2018, he would have taken that question and ripped Megyn Kelly apart in the old days. ‘What are you talking about! This is fake news media! You know I know the answer! I know the answer! You know the answer! Everyone watching knows the answer!'”

“And instead it really was a bad moment for him.”

It’s unclear why Rubin thinks this response would have made Trump seem more mentally stable, would have better answered Kelly’s question, or would have been more aligned with mainstream conservative opinion.