It’s amazing how far women’s rights have come since President Trump’s election, and how Democrats refuse to go along – with either that or audits of federal spending – says Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

“What a difference a day or two makes!” Hawley exclaimed in an exclusive interview with The Heartlander on Tuesday.

Indeed, it was just last December that the fiery Hawley pelted NCAA President Charlie Baker at at Senate hearing over the organization’s policies allowing males to compete in women’s sports.

Last week, Trump signed an executive order preserving girls’ and women’s sports for them.

https://x.com/HawleyMO/status/1887619417741344904

“I mean, Charlie Baker, head of the NCAA, told me ‘Oh, well, we have to allow men in women’s sports. We just have to. The law compels us’ – which is a lie. The law prevents men in women’s sports,” Hawley said. 

“And now all of a sudden, lo and behold, they have changed their tune after Trump comes to office and signs an executive order – which just reiterates, by the way, the clear text of Title IX, which says that women’s sports are for women. The NCAA is now changing their tune and saying, ‘OK, fine, we relent. We relent. Now it’s going to be only women in women’s sports,’ 

“Thank goodness. It is an embarrassment to that institution that it took years and, by the way, numerous lawsuits. Riley Gaines is suing them, numerous female athletes are suing them, because they’ve had their sports, they’ve had their rights as athletes taken away from them by the NCAA, who’s been allowing men to compete with women.

“It’s always wrong. It has always been wrong. Charlie Baker was wrong to lie about it, to put this policy into place, and I’m glad they’ve finally reversed themselves.”

Should courts, Congress weigh in?

Is an executive order enough, though? Trump’s edict can only be enforced at institutions that receive federal funds and are subject to Title IX law protecting women in education and associated sports.

As Hawley notes, women’s activist Gaines and others sued the NCAA over men on their teams and in their personal spaces such as locker rooms and restrooms. Should those cases be allowed to play out, in order to further cement women’s rights in the law?

“Yeah, I think it would be wise actually, for the lawsuits to play out,” Hawley says. “The problem with executive orders is, and in this case, they can’t change the law. They can declare how the executive branch is going to interpret the law. But an executive order has no ability to make law or to change law. 

“So, I think it’s imperative that the courts are clear on this. Title IX does not permit men to play in women’s sports. 

“And it may be that we need additional protections from the legislature. Congress should pass laws that make clear men are not permitted in women’s sports. It ought to be obvious to everybody, but we know from the left – and what they’ve done in all of these states, what they’ve done nationally – we know that they are just hell-bent on getting men into women’s sports.

“It’s crazy and we need to stop it once and for all.”

‘Far-left woke programs, bureaucrats’

As for Trump’s agency-by-agency audit of federal spending – led by entrepreneur Elon Musk and already revealing astonishing appropriations at home and abroad – Democrats are holding protest rallies outside the Treasury, USAID and other facilities to furiously defend the bureaucracy and attack Musk personally.

U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Maryland, decried Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as the “Department of Government Evil,” snarling, “Leave federal employees alone!”

“It’s amazing how much Democrats love far-left woke programs and bureaucrats,” Hawley observed. “I mean, look at USAID. They love the fact that USAID has been spending our taxpayer dollars to fly the trans flag at every embassy overseas, to promote trans surgeries and trans hormone treatments in faraway, distant countries, to promote it right here in the United States. 

“I’m told that money from USAID has gone to [Black Lives Matter], it has helped to seed and to support the unrest that we saw in our cities several years ago. It’s unbelievable. I mean, it’s just unbelievable – directly undermining the security of the United States, the values of the United States. 

“And this is what the Democrats want to defend. This is what they want to do with your tax dollars. Do they want the wall built? No. Do they want the border secured? No. But they do want to spend your money to promote transgender treatments in faraway countries. 

“It’s nuts, and I think it’s just a sign of how far off the deep end these people have gone, that this is what they care about. They want the border wide open. They want drug dealers and cartel members and crack dealers to be next to your kids out on the street and everywhere they go.

“But you know what? When it comes to maybe spending your money on you, they don’t want that. They want to be funding their far-left agenda everywhere. It’s crazy.”

Nonetheless, several liberal judges have stepped in to block the Trump administration from auditing and downsizing federal agencies with unaccountable spending records.

Are the judges right?

“Well, you know, I tend to agree with the president when he says that he has the authority as the executive to audit the executive branch,” argues Hawley, a former Missouri attorney general.

Nothing wrong with an audit

“And by the way, other presidents have done this, of both parties. In fact, some presidents have used outside entities to do it. Now, I would just emphasize here that Elon Musk and his team, they are not outside. They are actually government employees. They are designated as government employees. So, Trump is doing it within his own administration. 

“There’s nothing wrong with doing an audit. It’s a good thing to do an audit. And ultimately, of course, it’s the president’s decision to cut spending or not, to change the way that the agencies are run or not. That’s his decision and his decision alone. 

“I think this idea that the president is somehow hamstrung and he doesn’t have any discretion to review these programs, to do an audit – why do we elect him, then? Why do we have a president if he’s not going to be able to use the authority we’ve given him to administer the government? 

“I think this is common sense stuff, and I hope the courts will allow this audit to go forward. I can’t imagine on what basis they wouldn’t.”