Watch Caitlyn Jenner on Why She Won’t Play Golf With President Trump
Caitlyn Jenner dissected her complicated relationship with President Trump on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Tuesday. Jenner, who voted for Trump last year, offered qualified support for the President but rebuked him for revoking protections for transgender high school students.
Jenner and Trump were initially slated to play golf following his election last November, but Jenner changed her plans after the President’s administration took a public stance against the transgender community in February. “I would’ve gone down there and had an opportunity to spend four hours with [Trump] on a golf course and discuss a lot of the issues, and that would’ve been a very good thing for [the transgender] community,” Jenner explained. “But when he [took away protection for transgender students], he’s toxic. I would get destroyed by the community if I did that.”
Jenner also took a moment to boast about her high-level golf game. “I haven’t done it [played golf with Trump] ’cause I don’t think he wants to get beat by a 67-year-old trans woman,” she joked. “The man has an ego.”
She did not rule out the possibility of starting a backchannel conversation about transgender rights with the President. “Would I talk to him in private?… I would do that,” Jenner told Meyers. “I would say, ‘why the hell did you repeal that thing?'”
Though Jenner acknowledged that “the Republican party does not do a good job when it comes to equality and the entire LGBT community,” she stood by her vote for President Trump. “I’m not a one-issue voter,” she said. “I believe in little things like the Constitution and freedom. I believe in minimal government. I believe in the people of this county to get us out of the trouble that we’re in financially and economically more than I believe the government will fix this. The Republicans have done a better job in that direction.”
But she continued to seesaw between these endorsements of conservative principles and expressions of solidarity with the transgender community. “My loyalty is not with Donald Trump,” she declared. “My loyalty is not with the Republican party. My loyalty is with my community.”