On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Arena,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said that California should not comply with demands from the Trump administration on transgender athletes to get federal money and “The real issue here is less about transgender athletes and more about Donald Trump acting like he can threaten any state, any institution in this country that he disagrees with, and it is a total violation of federalism and the Constitution.”
Host Manu Raju asked, “Trump also threatened to withhold federal funding from California over a transgender athlete’s participation in an upcoming sporting event. He said he plans to speak with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who, himself, recently, said that it’s, quote, deeply unfair when trans women play in women’s sports. So, I wonder, given that, what Newsom said and Trump’s threats, do you think that Newsom should comply with Trump’s demands and ban this transgender athlete from competing in order to get these federal dollars?”
Khanna responded, “No, we should not bend the knee to Donald Trump. Look, this is a pattern of him threatening states, threatening institutions. He threatened to take away all the funding from Maine because the governor dared to speak out against him. He’s threatened Harvard University to revoke all the funding for cancer research, for medical research because they have foreign students. Now he’s threatening California because he disagrees with what the California interscholastic association is doing to figure out a fair solution. The real issue here is less about transgender athletes and more about Donald Trump acting like he can threaten any state, any institution in this country that he disagrees with, and it is a total violation of federalism and the Constitution.”
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