AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

President Trump continued his attack on the transgender community in his address Tuesday night, attacking transgender athletes, highlighting his ongoing efforts to curb the rights of transgender people, then called on Congress to ban gender-affirming care for youth.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on President Trump’s attacks on the trans community, we’re joined now by Imara Jones, the founder and CEO of TransLash Media, host of its investigative podcast, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine.

Your response to last night’s address, Imara?

IMARA JONES: I mean, I think that what trans people are feeling after last night’s address and overall is that, essentially, the Trump administration has declared war on trans people and declared war on trans existence. And the fact that there was so much time and energy devoted to it last night, I think, underscores the way that this community is targeting trans people as a part of its broader bid to undermine democracy and to usher in authoritarianism.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Imara, I wanted to you about the Republican campaign’s anti-trans ad blitz. Earlier this month, CBS News reported that Trump’s campaign spent more than $19 million on two television ads that have aired nearly 55,000 times since October 1, and they focus explicitly on transgender rights.

IMARA JONES: Yes. Essentially, you know, the Trump campaign spent in total $215 million on those ads. And it was the single-largest ad buy of the Trump campaign. So, from the perspective of the Trump campaign, it was an anti-trans campaign. And we know that it works. I mean, they credit those ads with giving them the margin of victory amongst young men between the ages of 18 and 35, who are oftentimes unreliable voters, which is one of the reasons why they weren’t in the models that we were seeing in terms of projecting the final numbers. Well, the Trump campaign was seeing movement amongst that group, and they showed up. And they showed up, in part, because of this targeted anti-trans campaign.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Imara Jones, we want to thank you for being with us, as we quickly span the scope of President Trump’s address. Imara Jones is the founder and CEO of TransLash Media, host of its investigative podcast, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine.