Key events
What was in Trump’s executive order on transgender troops?
Among a number of executive orders signed by Donald Trump on Monday was one that the White House said was intended to eliminate “gender radicalism in the military”.
The order directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, and is widely expected to lead to a ban.
It said service by troops whose gender identify differs from their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and was harmful to military readiness.
During his first term, Trump said he would ban transgender troops from serving in the military. He did not fully follow through with that ban, but his administration froze recruitment of transgender people while allowing serving personnel to remain.
Joe Biden overturned the decision when he took office in 2021.
About 1.3 million active personnel serve in the military, Department of Defense data shows. While transgender rights advocates say there are as many as 15,000 transgender service members, officials say the number is in the low thousands.
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Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders late last night to remove diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives from the military, reinstate thousands of troops who were kicked out for refusing COVID-19 vaccines, and direct officials to reassess the military’s policy on transgender troops.
As Reuters reports, Trump signed the executive orders while flying back from Miami to Washington DC. One of the executive orders said that expressing a “gender identity” different from an individual’s sex at birth did not meet military standards.
The move does appear to be paving the way for a ban of transgender soldiers in the military. Trump had tried to implement such a ban during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by Joe Biden shortly after he took office.
Lawyers for transgender troops who challenged the ban in the courts during Trump’s first term have already pledged to fight a new ban.
We’ll be bringing you more on this soon. In other developments:
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Yesterday Pete Hegseth, who narrowly secured enough votes to become defense secretary, referred to the names of Confederate generals that were once used for two key bases during his remarks to reporters as he entered the Pentagon on his first full day on the job. Hegseth referred to Fort Moore and Fort Liberty by their previous names, Fort Benning and Fort Bragg. The names honouring Confederate officers were changed under former Biden as part of an effort to reexamine US history and the Confederate legacy.
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Trump has suggested that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app. When asked last night if Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, the US president said “I would say yes”, adding: “A lot of interest in TikTok. There’s great interest in TikTok.” Microsoft declined to comment.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will reportedly be the first foreign leader to meet Trump at the White House since his inauguration. It is thought the meeting could come as early as next week.
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Trump called the apparent success of an AI model released by Chinese company DeepSeek a “wake-up call” for US tech. The share prices of some of the leading tech firms fell on Monday following the release of the model, which can perform as well as existing models but at a much lower cost, according to its developers.
