Gen. Stanley McChrystal Battles Bill Maher Over Trump Anti-Trans Push
Comic and political pundit Bill Maher battled Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) over President Donald Trump’s push against transgender people, including in the military.
On Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the interview guest was Gen. Stanley McChrystal, retired four-star Army general and author of the book “On Character: Choices That Define a Life.”
The panel guests were Scott Jennings, CNN senior political contributor and author of the upcoming book “A Revolution of Common Sense: How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization”; and Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s “Good Luck America.”
Gen. McChrystal took the first shot at Trump over his assault on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies, then debated Maher about the issue of transgender people in the military, telling him “nobody cares” if a person is trans on the battlefield:
RET. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: If you think of the Pentagon in general… We’ve got to defend the nation. And that’s very, very serious business. It’s expensive, it’s across the world. And it requires every capability America can marshal.
And now we are locked in this. Argument about DEI. And in reality, when I commanded the counter-terrorist forces… It was the ultimate meritocracy.
… But the reality is, it’s a team, and that team that does it is communicators and logisticians. Intelligence professionals. And it’s people of every age, of every sex, of every gender.
If someone is transgender, no one cares. They want to get the job done right. And so we sometimes make it two dimensional. In the idea that you’ve got to be a certain profile to be a warrior. And I just have a different view of the military than Secretary Hegseth in that regard. I think we really are about what best defends us. I think what best offends us is everybody.
BILL MAHER: Okay. But I must say, this is exactly why these guys wanted to take over.
Because they think. I mean, first of all, I do find it hard to believe that nobody in the military has a problem with trans people in the– Is that what you’re saying?
RET. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: No, I certainly would never speak for everybody in the military. I’m sure some do But the reality is…
I mean, it’s the same thing as what goes on in women’s locker rooms. There are some places people just don’t want a penis. I mean, there are… Alright. Thank you very much.
I… I don’t trust a penis no matter who has it. Okay, it’s just not a trustworthy organ.
But this is what, why they want, they say that, Pete Hegseth says we have to restore the warrior ethos and that somehow this is in conflict with wokeness. So you don’t see that as a problem at all. When you were there, there was nothing that you would describe as too woke.
RET. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Well, there are always superficial things that even at the time caused me to roll my eyes a bit. But the reality is, it was a great service member on TV the other day who said, “We’re too strong to participate in sports. And yet we are not strong enough to be in the military.”.
And that’s the basic contradiction here, I think anyone who has the desire to serve their nation. To put their life on the line. To bring their talents.
I’ve just never seen, I never heard a discussion about transgender when I was in. In fact, there was a big argument about women in combat. And there was a certain percentage of the force that was against it.
And the thing that became… Kind of funny about it is… They were still arguing about it 10 years after women were already in combat and doing very well. And so that had changed, the reality had changed.
And most of the people who are actually doing the military’s business are very practical people, and I think that’s still the case.
Watch above via HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
