Tucker clashes with Arkansas governor over youth gender reassignment bill

well the legislature in arkansas recently passed a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing so-called puberty blockers heavy-duty hormones to children who believe they're transgender the law also bans surgeons from physical castration of children but the governor of arkansas asa hutchinson vetoed that bill on monday legislatures in arkansas just voted to override that veto which brings us to where we are right now ace hutchinson is the governor of arkansas and he joins us to talk about this story governor thanks so much for coming on i really appreciate it in the middle of all this now i i think of you as a conservative here you've come out publicly as pro-choice on the question of chemical castration of children what changed well first of all your teaser as you led into this program did not accurately represent the bill if this had been a bill that simply prohibited chemical castration i would have signed the bill but tucker as you know this bill was overbroad it was extreme it went far beyond what you just said and i made it clear that this if this was about prohibiting uh procedures uh 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 and so this goes way too far and in fact it doesn't even have a grandfather clause that those uh young people that are under hormonal treatment if i could become this is chemical castration of course if you stop puberty and suppress the sex hormones you're chemically castrating someone so our our description was correct but let me just ask you i mean there are all kinds of we're talking about minors children here and there are all kinds of things in arkansas kids in every state are not allowed to do get married drink a beer get a tattoo why do you think it's important for conservatives to make certain that children can block their puberty be chemically castrated why is that a conservative value if you would tell us well first of all 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 are we as a party abandoning a limited role of government and saying we're going to invoke the government decision making over and above physicians over and above health care over and above parents and saying you can't do you believe it's healthy you're not engaged how much how deeply have you studied this this topic with respect it doesn't sound like you've studied it very deeply i mean this is an emerging field there's not a lot of research but the research that exists suggests that depression and the urge to self-harm and suicide is a component is a side effect of taking these hormones a study in the uk show the overwhelming majority of kids of children on puberty blocking hormones had the urge to hurt themselves why is that responsible medicine to do that to children why would you support something like that well i actually reviewed some of that study i reviewed the high court decision there and i think they are different than what you're talking about here sure there's a lot of unknowns here uh i studied this bill in contrast to what you just said i spent a lot of time reviewing cases meeting with people listening to the experts as well as to faith leaders as well and i'm a person of faith but at the same time i'm a person of limited role of government i signed pro-life bills uh i signed uh many bills that would be looked at as a very conservative but this is one that crosses the line there's no need for it hold on hold on i'm sorry but hold on did you you've said that you've seen research that shows the mental health of children who receive puberty blocking drugs improves what is that research exactly well the research that i've seen shows that these troubled youth these ones that have gender dysphoria that they also have depression they have suicidal tendencies it's a higher suicide rate than others and they go to their parents the parents go to doctors and they try to deal with this very difficult issue i don't think we should deny that i'm sorry i'm sorry you're the governor you just vetoed this bill you said you're familiar with the studies no one disputes that children who are asking for puberty blocking drugs or been recommended their parents or doctors may be depressed that seems very likely i think the studies show it cite one specific study that shows puberty blocking drugs improves the condition does it make children less depressed does it make them less likely to harm themselves to commit suicide just name one study that shows that please well i would refer you to the american academy of pediatrics i would refer you to the into the the physicians that came out in opposition to this bill because they understood the risk to these young people and if you prohibit uh the medical care that this bill prohibits then you're going to endanger uh these young people even further so i would say existed this field barely existed 10 years ago cases of gender dysphoria so-called have increased by thousands of percent in the last decade so actually we can't know the answers to these questions the the the research that we have suggest the opposite of what you're claiming you clearly aren't familiar with the research and so my question is have you spoken to any of the biggest employers the big companies in arkansas about this have you taken any calls from tysons from dillard from walmart has anyone from those companies called you about this bill no but tucker you're saying first of all you haven't spoken no no there is a there is not a single study that i'm aware of that shows an improvement in the mental health of children who take puberty blockers who are chemically castrated and you couldn't cite one you're not familiar with their research you were told by doctors that it's a good idea and you went with it but i just want to clarify very quickly have you and i just want to be clear on this have you spoken to any corporate interest in the state of arkansas about this bill tucker i answered that i answered that question and i said no i have not no you have another question i'm skeptical because we've certainly seen across the let me just say governor with respect i'm skeptical that not a single corporation in the state of arkansas has weighed in with you one way or the other on this bill i am i'm skeptical you asked me if i talked to them i said i hadn't let me emphasize tucker you are a conservative you have a great background in that where are we getting back to the limited role of government that we don't have to invoke ourselves in every societal position out there let's limit the role of government okay let's play parents then why don't we allow 18 year olds to drink beer in arkansas why don't we allow them to get tattoos why don't we allow 15 year olds to get married you're allowing you vetoed a bill that would have protected children not adults children to whom a different standard applies from a life-altering permanent procedure that has effects we can only guess at but the early indication is they're very serious and very negative in some cases and now you're telling me you do that because you're a friend of limited government okay then why are we preventing kids from drinking sincere question or getting married sincere question having sex they're not old enough to have sex but they're old enough to be chemically castrated how does that work exactly i'll listen as you explain well thank you tucker and first of all these are difficult decisions do you want to listen to the medical profession do you want to listen to professional counselors do you want to listen to parents or do you want to leave all these decisions to the legislators that come from all different kinds of background yes they're elected to represent you but they do not necessarily make the right judgments for parents and for doctors in the most sensitive issues and so sure why would you why are we regulating the behavior of children at all if we're allowing children to decide and by the way i read a study today that showed the overwhelming majority of kids who do not take life-altering hormones in the end decide not to quote transition to a new sex so there's a lot going on here but i'm asking as a conservative you just incited invoked ronald reagan as if he were for chemical castration of children what other behavior should we not use the power of the state to regulate among kids seriously well every time and see look tucker you want to keep talking you want me to answer a question well thank you and so whenever you whether it's it's beer for minors these are all issues that you have to address the legislature you make judgment calls on it but we also try to restrain ourselves as conservatives that we don't have to be involved in every issue and if you want to broaden the party if you want to get back to the principles then let's at least think through in a reasoned way as to whether this is the right bill to interfere with parents and doctors decisions on a health care matter as you pointed out has does not have thorough research in every area and so i yield to that whenever you look at this bill it might yield to the lack of research really quick ten years ago if somebody had said hey asa hutchinson you're gonna be governor of arkansas and you're gonna veto a bill that would have protected children from chemical castration what do you think you would have said well just like i said today if you're talking about a reassignment surgery i would have signed that bill in a minute but whenever you're talking about maybe less than 200 kids in arkansas that's currently on hormone treatment and they are immediately cut off without having a grandfather clause in this legislation i don't think that's treating those kids or their parents or their health care providers fairly or equally all right that's the conservative position governor thanks i appreciate coming on

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Keywords: asa hutchinson, trandgender bill, tucker transgender, trans bill, carlson, fnc, fox news, fox news channel, fox news media, fox news network, fox news voices, tucker, tucker carlson, tucker carlson monologue, tucker carlson monologue tonight, tucker carlson tonight, tucker monologue, tucker monologue tonight, tucker reacts, tucker tonight, tucker asa hutchinson, fox news asa hutchinson, arksas governor, asa hutchinson vetoes bill, asa hutchinson gender reassignment

Id: 01Hry1rJn7w

Length: 10min 32sec (632 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/PazuzuTheDemon73]

To be fair the Arkansas governor did make a good point about how "Republicans believe in small government and when government steps in to ban transgender medical procedures, it's not acting like small government and it is hypocritical". To be fair, that is a good point.

This can be very difficult to watch, especially after Tucker Carlson says to his face "how much have you studied this ?", essentially insulting him, lol.