Trump administration to appoint sheriff who called trans people ‘freaks’ to homeland security

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 28: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke leaves Trump Tower on November 28, 2016 in New York City. President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are in the process of filling cabinet and other high level positions for the new administration. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Trump administration appears set to appoint a sheriff to the Department of Homeland Security who called transgender people “freakish”.

President Trump met with Sheriff David Clarke last year ahead of his inauguration suggesting that he might be placed in the Department.

According to Politico, Clarke made the announcement in a Wisconsin radio interview on Wednesday that he would be an assistant secretary at DHS’ Office of Partnership and Engagement.

President Donald Trump

The Sheriff of Milwaukee County has made a string of extreme anti-LGBT comments in the past.

Speaking on his show on TheBlaze Radio Network last year, Clarke claimed that discussions about gun control after the Orlando Massacre were a “distraction”.

He said: “Folks, we took the cheese. It refers to a mouse trap, with a nice big chunk of cheese on it. You know what’s going to happen if that mouse touches the cheese.

“That’s precisely what we did following the Orlando terror massacre. We allowed the left to use gun control as a shiny object to distract us from Mrs Bill Clinton’s flaws.

“We were hammering her over Benghazi, and what the left do is exploit these distractions, something came up, a shiny object… they know they can bury us in this thing that isn’t going to change anything.

“Don’t take the cheese! We spent a whole week taking about what they wanted us to talk about… it got us off of the momentum about the Clinton e-mail scandal.”

Clarke added: “We could have talked about a lot of things around Orlando, the failure of Barack Obama… we missed that opportunity. When the Democrats throw a shiny object out there, we need to take that and turn it into tying it around the neck of Mrs Bill Clinton.”

In the same podcast he attacked the “freakish lifestyle” of transgender people, claiming they have mental disorders.

He fumed: “Folks, more evidence that transgender persons suffer from mental disorders more than physiological disorders.

“Too often in this assault on the First Amendment, and this very totalitarian attitude from the left that any freakish lifestyle is now considered part of the norm, and they’re shoving it down our throats.

“If you’re not careful when you engage in this conversation, they’ll look for the trap, and they’ll catch you saying something that’s clumsy or not well articulated, and then they’ll just attack you with it… Transgender-phobic and all this other nonsense.”

Clarke continued to read an article from anti-trans activist Walt Heyer, who Business Insider reports has called for parents of transgender children to be jailed. The article refers to accepting transgender people as “madness”.

The sheriff claimed: “The left is on a political crusade with this, looking to push any lifestyle as mainstream because they seek their vote. I think this is cruel, I think it’s disgusting.

“We need to push back on this.”

He also mocked transgender bathroom rights, saying: “How did America go from a nation that figured out how to get a man on the moon to one with people confused about what public bathroom to use.”

Joe Biden this week called on Donald Trump’s administration to use its power to help protect the rights of LGBT people across the globe.
Barack Obama’s Vice President, who had the role from 2009 to 2017, made the comments in a comment piece for The Washington Post after being announced as an LGBT hero for his work.

Mr Biden called on Americans to “stand with LGBT people around the world” and hit out against anti-LGBT hate that exists globally and also at home in the US.