It was the anti-woke alphabet soup heard around the world: “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.”
So said former president Donald Trump about Vice President Kamala Harris while facing her for the first time on the debate stage Tuesday night. It was just one of Trump’s bizarre answers throughout the 90-minute faceoff, which also included fear-mongering around immigrants eating cats and having “concepts of a plan” when it comes to healthcare.
Trump’s anti-aliens answer doesn’t make any more sense in context. While accusing Harris of being against fracking and for defunding the police, he rattled off a laundry list of quote-unquote her “radical left liberal” leanings.
“She went out in Minnesota and wanted to let criminals that killed people, that burned down Minneapolis, she went out and raised money to get them out of jail. She did things that nobody would ever think of,” Trump said. “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this.” (Disappointingly, Trump’s rambling was the only time the word “transgender” was said by either candidate during the debate.)
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Naturally, the internet isn’t having it with Trump’s answer. First, there’s the innate ridiculousness of his accusation: Trump seemed to be stringing as many hot-button issues as he could into one sentence, even if there’s no discernible connection. It reads like “woke mad libs,” as one user quipped on social media.
Again, all this was in response to a question about fracking. Where do trans aliens come into the picture? It’s near impossible to follow Trump’s logic — which hopefully means it will also be near impossible to follow him to the polls come November.
RelatedAnd Tim Walz is told of Swift’s endorsement live on air during an interview.LGBTQ+ people in America are under constant attack, and these issues need to be addressed.
Meanwhile, the internet decided to take Trump’s allegation literally and pay homage to the iconic transgender aliens throughout pop culture. That includes extraterrestrial divas like Pleakley from Lilo & Stitch, the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise, and the original alien icon E.T. from E.T.
But of course, one transgender alien looms large above the rest: Roger from American Dad!, whose many femme alter egos make him a genderfluid icon. It’s only natural he’d come to mind after Trump’s comment, and the internet had no shortage of Roger pics to flood the timeline with.
It’s only Trump’s latest political gaffe, and sure not to his last on the campaign trail heading into November. Luckily, the internet will be there to clown him every step of the way.