General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan the President undo law and policy with a tweet?
Won't it be contested in the Courts?
Beartracks
(12,809 posts)But Republicans will probably circle the wagons and claim, "The Constitution doesn't say anything about Twitter!!!11!" 'cuz, you know, they're strict Constitutionalists.
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malaise
(268,930 posts)This is madness
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)the constitution (and the Secretary of Defense's boss).
applegrove
(118,622 posts)bdamomma
(63,836 posts)is a tweet. What a stupid ass man/child he is. malaise.
This just has to stop this is beyond comprehension.
malaise
(268,930 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)or Rule by Royal Tweet as it is now practiced.
C_U_L8R
(44,998 posts)Clearly, Donnie needs to sit still and watch a few episodes of Schoolhouse Rock
nikibatts
(2,198 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)These things are written into military regulations. He is supposed to direct DOD to write a new regulation. Legal, political and practical considerations have to be worked out. New orders have to be issued. It takes time.
TomSlick
(11,097 posts)This would take months - at least. The only purpose here was to quiet Session's right-wing supporters. When it is no longer politically expedient to placate the right-wing, this will be forgotten.
Remember, it's Trump we're talking about. He will free to change his mind when it suits him.
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)No discussion with the Pentagon -- I want to say no, but Trump is a white dude and it seems he gets a pass.
I really don't see how he can get away with this. I know the ACLU is already involved.
As to what the Pentagon has to say, that is another story.
He just blurted this crap out on twitter and everyone is acting like it is policy -- and that is a real and serious problem.
Igel
(35,300 posts)The Trump military tweet? He's commander in chief. The pentagon reports to him. That's an important point. How to interpret it's a bit harder.
When Obama scrapped the don't-ask policy, there was a law in place by Congress banning gays from serving in the military. And the ban didn't immediately lapse. In fact, Obama had to certify that adequate review had been taken to change the policy. (IIRC, the original law was put in place because of fears that the Clinton administration would change the policy. That sort of entails that the policy wasn't law until then.)
I don't recall any law being passed rescinding a ban on trans citizens serving last summer. It seemed that Obama announced it in consultation with the military. He would have had to sign off on it as commander.
So while Trump can't tweet away the law, it's far from clear (and looking pretty good) that there's no law governing the policy itself.
The new trans policy put in place last year was written by an undersecretary of defense (according to newspaper accounts Google kindly pointed me to). Not by the chiefs of staff. It was pursuant to review that the DoD said it would be carrying out, but that sounds like an internal decision. Are there procedures that Congress put in place for revising military policy? No clue. Nobody's said there were any. I'd have thought that would have been the first thing shouted out. But it may be buried in the arcana and esoterica governing the military.
It will certainly be contested in the courts, if only because Trump said it (if he said that the sky was blue or that hydrogen typically had one proton in its nucleus, at least 3 cases would be filed in three different circuits contesting it). The most likely grounds will be sexual-orientation discrimination. If those currently serving are dumped--for which there is no policy, regulation, law, or precedent--that suit will certainly succeed because it will be breaking a contract. If the policy is just no longer admitting trans soldiers, or admitting them while requiring that their biology remain unchanged for the duration of their service, that's far less clear, unless the courts decide that they're now in charge of reviewing what military and political folk think is "appropriate" and required for military readiness and coming up with their own definitions for the terms. The courts have shied away from that in the past.
Reading Trump is an art, but like all art you have to go in open minded and inquisitive while most people before they even read what's said already know they'll disagree and it'll be as bad as it can be.
That said, I suspect the policy he's getting at is probably the latter. Currently-serving personnel were to be trained on policy and procedures and such by 7/1/17, with openly trans recruits first admitted as such after 7/1. That was delayed pending further "review". That policy could be easily reversed without affecting anybody except people who hoped to join the military. (I know at least one trans Army recruit, but apart from a haircut, as of the last time we talked he was completely female apart from a moderately butch haircut--one that wasn't exclusively male, in fact, one that was unlikely to be on a male. However, he's also not 18 yet and was going to basic training under some pre-admission program. Under the DoD policy in place as of yesterday, he was still fully a she and to be treated as female.)
The rest will depend on the specifics of the policy. Trump doesn't choose his words carefully and sometimes listening for the gist over several announcements gets you a lot further in actual meaning than parsing each word. He's always had others provide the precision and accuracy that he, well, "frequently lacks" isn't right ... The precision and accuracy that he's never even been in the same room with.
malaise
(268,930 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Ilsa
(61,694 posts)soldiers that policy is not made in a tweet; nothing has changed, the Pentagon and DoD have not set any new policies, and they still had their backs.
It sounded like the tweet caused a lot of confusion, gut-wrenching frustration at the unit level. I bet they are really pissed at trump.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)It's confusing. Who knows what that tweet really meant, or what happens now. The Pentagon certainly doesn't; the military on the ground doesn't either. Everybody involved is sort of saying "Whaa?"
Remember, we live in "interesting" times.
ecstatic
(32,685 posts)bluestarone
(16,906 posts)ruled on this already
dsc
(52,155 posts)but if you are referring to the transgender in the military tweets it wouldn't be a law he is reversing but an administrative decision which is in his power to do. But it would have to be fleshed out.
Hieronymus
(6,039 posts)another delusion of Trump's.