NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is dominating the race for the Republican nomination and has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term.
Some of his current ideas would probably end up in court or impeded by Congress. But Trump’s campaign and allied groups are assembling policy books with detailed plans.
A look at his agenda:
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS
Trump says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that “only two genders,” as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States.
As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he will declare that hospitals and health care providers that offer transitional hormones or surgery no longer meet federal health and safety standards and will be blocked from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid and Medicare dollars.
He would push Congress to prohibit hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors in all 50 states.
Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy before medical intervention. At that point, hormone treatments such as puberty blockers are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors’ organizations, including the American Medical Association.
DISMANTLING THE ‘DEEP STATE’
Trump would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections. That way, they could be fired as he seeks to “totally obliterate the deep state.”
He would try to accomplish that by reissuing a 2020 executive order known as “Schedule F.”
That would allow him to reclassify masses of employees, with a particular focus, he has said, on “corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system” and “corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”
Given his anger at the FBI and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal cases against him, Trump probably would target people linked to those prosecutions for retribution.
Beyond the firings, he wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test.
To be continued …
