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Massachusetts Attorney General: Stephen Miller has ‘absolutely no business being anywhere near the Oval Office’
By Alex Bregman
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is pushing back against President Trump’s decision to roll back guidance put in place by the Obama administration that said schools have to let students use the bathroom corresponding to their preferred gender identity. The directive, at the time, was in response to so-called bathroom bills passed by states and local school districts that had prevented transgender students from using the bathroom that corresponds to their sexual identity rather than their assigned sex at birth. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said, “The president has maintained for a long time that this is a states’ rights issue and not one for the federal government.”
Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga spoke to Healey about her state’s reaction to the Trump administration on transgender protections. Healey’s response to the states’ rights argument on transgender rights in schools: “They can claim it’s not a federal law issue, but it is, and in fact, Title IX, which is a federal statute, we believe is correctly interpreted and was correctly interpreted by the Obama administration to include protection against discrimination based on gender identities.”
She continued, “I’m glad that I’m in a state where there are protections for transgender students in education, but my heart breaks, Bianna, for the many, many kids and families across this country who saw the first act of a United States attorney general to be a cruel one to actually take away rights and protections and to say to them, ‘You’re not worthy of equal treatment. You’re not worthy of dignity and respect like all other students and young people out there.’ I think that’s just wrong.”
Healey also told Golodryga, “I think that Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions ought to start picking on someone their own size and not like they did yesterday, which was to pick on and target already vulnerable children.”
Healey was also among the state attorneys general that had sued the White House over the recent immigration travel ban that has been put on hold by a federal court. The administration has said it will be replacing it with a new order in the future. When Healey was asked whether she plans to challenge that pending order, she told Golodryga: “We will have to wait and see what that executive order is, but the first one presented all sorts of not just unconstitutional concerns but also, think about the chaos that he created. As a member of law enforcement … who is in Boston, Mass., and very concerned about issues of security, I will tell you that what he did was counterproductive and harmful to security.”
Finally, when asked about President Trump’s inner circle, Healey took particular aim at White House senior adviser Stephen Miller. She said, “There are people there around him that have absolutely no business being anywhere near the Oval Office. Somebody like a Stephen Miller just has no business being in the White House, let alone offering advice to the president of the United States. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
As for President Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, Healey said: “I think that Steve Bannon … his record, his actions speak for themselves. I think it is deeply unfortunate that the president has not sought the advice and the counsel of a broader array of individuals with actual experience and knowledge and know-how. I think, frankly, that’s why you see such a chaotic and dysfunctional administration.”
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