On the heels of the White House vocally condemning a call to eliminate transgender people, President Joe Biden called out Florida for attacking transgender youth.

“What’s going on in Florida, is as my mother would say, close to sinful,” Biden told out actor Kal Penn on The Daily Show in an interview that will air later today.

The White House press secretary was done being talked over by Simon Ateba.

“It’s just terrible what they’re doing,” he continued. “It’s not like you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I decided I want to become a man,’ or ‘I wanna become a woman.’”

“They’re human beings! They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations- I mean, it just to me is, it’s cruel.”

Biden said Congress needs to “pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage.”

“You mess with that, you’re breaking the law, and you’re going to be held accountable.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_TwJbNK_XU8%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Florida has passed a number of laws and rule changes attacking transgender people’s rights, including a ban on trans youth participating in school sports and a ban on gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. The state is considering several more this year, including one that would allow the state to take away trans kids from their affirming families, even if they’re just on vacation in the state.

This past Friday, out White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned attacks on transgender people’s rights as “shameful, hateful, and dangerous.”

She pointed to far-right Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, who called for “transgenderism” to be “eradicated from public life entirely” at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

“Look, it started with a speaker at a conservative conference calling for the eradication of transgender people, language that not a single national Republican leader has condemned,” Jean-Pierre said. 

“In Iowa and Tennessee, Republicans are now calling for legislation to attack gay marriage and protections for same-sex couples. In Florida — just Florida alone — Republicans introduced 20 bills — 20 bills — on a single day to roll back the rights of LGBTQ community. One of those bills would give the state the right to remove kids from their parents just because that kid is transgender.”

She noted that there have been hundreds of bills attacking LGBTQ+ people filed in state legislatures across the country.

“So, so far this year, we have seen more than 450 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced at the state level — you’ve heard me say that before — amounting to a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills in our country’s history. Guys, today is day 70.  It is day 70 of 2023.”

“The same leaders that tout freedom apparently don’t extend their love for freedom if they disagree with who you are, who you love, or how you parent.”