Sen. Whitehouse: Trans People Have a Constitutional Right to Serve in Military

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

BLITZER: "Well, general Mattis, the secretary of defense, announced last month he needed six months to make a thorough review of this proposed ban on transgender Americans serving in the military. It's only been a month. He had five more months to go and then all of a sudden the president made this announcement on Twitter this morning. This new policy affecting several thousand service members, transgender service members already serving on active duty right now. What does it say to you about their future?"
WHITEHOUSE: "Well, it's one of the unknowns. Thankfully, people who are serving our country in uniform have certain rights to be treated fairly, both under the Constitution and under the rules of the United States military. And I don't think that a presidential tweet is cause to remove them. What happens if you find out that the person squirrelled away at the defense intelligence agency who knows the most about this particular faction of ISIS and uses that knowledge every day to save our service members and to attack ISIS happens to be transgender? You actually make the decision to get rid of that person because of presidential tweet potentially putting our mission in harms way because a core individual with specialized knowledge is no longer available to them? I mean, none of this makes sense."