Tucker Carlson and Caitlyn Jenner debate Trump and transgender rights

Tucker Carlson made his debut Monday night in the primetime slot formerly occupied by ousted Fox News host Bill O’Reilly by debating transgender rights with his first guest, Caitlyn Jenner.

Carlson opened the interview by commending Jenner for her support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race.

Jenner quickly clarified that she never “outwardly supported Trump.”

“The media did that for me,” she said. “I’m on the Republican, conservative side, and he wound up being our candidate. So I certainly was going to vote for him.”

But Jenner, the reality television star turned transgender rights activist, said Trump has not made progress on LGBT issues.

“That’s where my fight is,” she said. “I thought Trump would be good, but he’s kind of disappointed me in the first 100 days.”

Still, Jenner said she doesn’t regret voting for him.

“I’m not a one-issue voter,” she said. “I’d rather convince the Republican Party to do a better job when it comes to all LGBT issues than convince Democrats to lower taxes and lower regulations and let our country thrive.”

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But Jenner said she’s troubled by some of the signals the Trump administration has been sending on transgender rights, including its rescinding of Title IX protections for transgender students in public schools. During the campaign, Trump said Jenner could use any Trump Tower bathroom she wanted.

Jenner also told Carlson that she would like to see the murders of transgender women prosecuted as hate crimes.

Carlson wondered why it isn’t enough to simply treat the killings as homicides, since “everyone’s an American and all lives are equal.”

“Too many times, trans women who are murdered are brushed off to the side,” Jenner explained. “‘Oh, look, it’s only a trans woman. Look what she was doing.’”

At the top of the show, Carlson addressed his arrival in O’Reilly’s time slot.

“For those of you tuning in and expecting to see someone different in this anchor chair,” Carlson said, “I know the feeling well. I watched Bill O’Reilly for years, and I always marveled how well prepared he was. How tough he was and how crisply and toughly he expressed his views. What O’Reilly did was not easy. He set a high bar to meet. And I’ll do my best to meet it.”

Fox parted ways with O’Reilly last week amid mounting allegations of sexual harassment.

Later, Carlson assured viewers that the tone of the 8 p.m. hour would not change.

“The show will always be, as we’ve said, the sworn enemy of lying pomposity, smugness and groupthink,” he said.

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