Nikki Haley says no one is joining the military because they’re scared of “gender pronoun classes”

Nikki Haley, who’s currently second place in the polls for the GOP primary after Donald Trump, blamed trans people for the military not being able to meet its recruitment goals in a rant full of false statements.

The former South Carolina governor and Trump administration official said that U.S. military recruitment is “down 25%” while appearing on a show from the Christian web-based media company Center Point. Recruitment was actually down 2.7% in 2022 compared to 2021, according to a Department of Defense release from two months ago.

Related:

Nikki Haley promises she’ll “always fight” against trans kids playing sports

Her comments come as Republicans prepare to center trans issues in the 2024 national elections.

“For the first time, military parents are telling their kids, don’t do it,” Haley claimed. “The reason is, look at what’s happening in the military. They’re not mission-focused anymore.”

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“For goodness sake, stop making them take gender pronoun classes,” she said, exasperated over something that does not exist. “It’s demoralizing to our military. Stop all these programs that don’t matter!”

She also decried “diversity and equity and inclusion programs” in the military, apparently suggesting that making the military more hostile to women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people would help recruitment. She said that the solution to the military’s recruitment problem is to get people who enlist “because they so love the country, our freedoms, and our blessings that we have.”

Haley never served in the military.

Haley posted video of her rant to social media and repeated the false 25% statistic. A community note on X, formerly Twitter, attempted to correct her misinformation.

While “gender pronoun classes” don’t exist, the U.S. Army does provide training on its policy that allows transgender people to serve openly. Several slides about trans people that made statements like “The Army is open to all who can meet the standards for military service” and said to treat trans soldiers “with dignity and respect” caused outrage in right-wing media in 2022.

The branches of the U.S. military have fallen between 11% and 23% short of 2023 recruitment goals. Part of the problem, according to the Department of Defense, is that over three-quarters of 17- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. are not qualified to serve due to medical, physical, and mental health issues.

Haley is currently in second place in the GOP primary with an average of 11.0% support in Real Clear Politics’s average of polls. Trump is currently polling at 62.7% and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is getting 10.9% support. Other candidates are all below five percent.