In the final days of President-elect Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, he focused on culture war issues that could have led to more floating votes and locked-in elections, the ad campaign said. argues the conservative activist who contributed.
“Kamala is for them, President Trump is for you,” the narrator of the Trump ad said.
The ad focuses on men in women's sports and Vice President Kamala Harris' accomplishments in spearheading gender reassignment procedures for incarcerated people in California, and is partially based on American Principles. -This was due to the influence of Terry Schilling, the project's chairman. These ads are from 2019.
Harris lost to Trump and became the second Democratic candidate to vote without speaking to supporters on election night.
Mr. Harris and Mr. Trump. (Bill Priano/Getty Images)
Schilling said at the time that the issue was “too early” to cause any ripples in the conservative movement. But as the gender ideology war began to gain mainstream attention over the course of the Biden-Harris administration, Schilling believed it would become a win-win issue for conservatives.
The American Principles Project has spent tens of millions of dollars on ads highlighting transgender issues in states across the country, and Schilling visited Mar-a-Lago a few months ago to urge President Trump to take the opportunity. I personally recommended it.
“The policy of performing sex reassignment procedures on prisoners is very radical, very extreme, and it's not just a culture war issue, it's an economic issue,” Schilling told Fox News Digital.
“There are a lot of families that are struggling. They're struggling to put food on the table,” Schilling said. “They are struggling to send their children to decent schools where they can learn to read and write properly, and the government is paying to educate people when they are solving all the troubles together. They committed very serious crimes that landed them in federal prison and underwent sex reassignment surgery that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. ”
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(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“When you go to prison, you have to lose some rights. This was an issue that really resonated with me,” he continued. “Trump is highly trusted. I've heard from several people that this crazy, lunatic, genius person said, 'Kamala Harris is for them, Donald Trump is for you.' He actually came up with that last line. He's very good at branding.”
Schilling said this year saw record fundraising for his organization, increasing from $12 million to $18 million, a 50% increase over the previous year. He highlighted that the funding has driven extensive research, ad production and messaging guidance, and reportedly influenced the Republican Party to focus on transgender issues in campaign ads.
Schilling said Republicans have spent more than $215 million on ads targeting transgender issues.
Last year, Schilling's organization produced an ad featuring female activist Riley Gaines defending Daniel Cameron against Democrat Andy Beshear in the Kentucky gubernatorial race.
AG Garland advocates for “gender-affirming care” for inmates appointed to Corrections Advisory Committee
CatholicVote's anti-Harris ad declares, “Kamala Harris is on their side, not yours.” (YouTube Screenshot | CatholicVote)
In August 2023, APP released a 2022 post-election report entitled “Failed Red Wave: Lessons from Republican Disappointment,” stating that the Republican Party's poor performance was due to Democratic Party cultural differences on transgender issues. He argued that this was partly due to a lack of access to extremism.
This summer, APP announced an $18 million ad campaign exposing the positions of Kamala Harris and other Democrats on transgender issues.
“We've spent over seven figures on polls, focus groups, message testing, banging our heads against the wall with candidates up and down the ballot, and in 2024, we've finally broken through. '' Schilling said.
The ad ran during the election period, when several actions by the Biden-Harris administration boosted the message.
In June, health authorities Biden administration According to undisclosed court documents, we have asked the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an international non-profit organization for transgender health, to omit age restrictions from its guidelines for transgender surgical procedures for adolescents. It is said that it was successful.
More than a dozen U.S. states have enacted laws banning surgeries and prescribing hormones to transgender youth.
Idaho, North Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama have passed laws making it a felony to change the sex of a child. Meanwhile, several blue states have recently enacted “sanctuary state” laws that protect health care providers who perform transgender procedures on youth from penalties.
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It was because of President Trump's opposition that he succeeded in appealing to people on this issue. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to “fight” the incoming Trump administration's proposed policies on important issues such as abortion, border security and LGBTQ rights.
left wing civil liberties Romero's open letter said the organization launched 434 legal challenges during President Trump's first term and plans to continue in his second term. They will, for example, “override Trump administration policies that impact gay and transgender communities, such as keeping biological men out of women's restrooms and preventing them from playing on women's sports teams.” The plan is to use the courts to
Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
