The decision by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson to veto a bill that blocks gender reassignment surgeries for minors spells “the end of him,” according to former President Donald Trump.
The governor “just vetoed a Bill that banned the CHEMICAL CASTRATION OF CHILDREN. ‘Bye-bye Asa,’ that’s the end of him!” Trump wrote in a statement on Thursday.
“Fortunately for the Great State of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders will do a fantastic job as your next Governor!” he added.
Hutchinson, a Republican, early this week vetoed the state bill that would bar doctors and other healthcare workers from providing any so-called gender transition procedures to minors.
On April 6, in a combative interview on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Hutchinson defended the veto.
“I made it clear that if this was about prohibiting procedures, sex reassignment surgery, absolutely, I would have signed that bill. But this, again, is the first law in the nation that invokes the state between medical decisions, parents who consent to that, and the decision of the patient,” he said.
Asked to answer to people wondering whether chemically castrating children is a conservative value, he added: “You have parents involved in very difficult decisions. You have physicians that are involved in these decisions and I go back to William Buckley, I go back to Ronald Reagan, the principles of our party, which believes in a limited role of government.”
Hutchinson, one of the more moderate GOP governors in the country, is term-limited from running for another term.
Sanders, the former Trump aide, is among those seeking to replace him in 2022. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is also running.
Neither have appeared to comment on the bill blocking sex surgeries for minors. Their campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
