Donald Trump Tries and Fails to Define ‘Woman’ in Anti-Trans Interview

Former President Donald Trump appeared on British TV host Piers Morgan's new series, Piers Morgan Uncensored, in an episode that aired Tuesday night.

In the interview, Trump told Morgan that he wasn't "a fan" of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and that he recently shot a hole-in-one while playing golf. He also dove into transphobic remarks related to trans athletes, bringing up trans swimming champion Lia Thomas.

"I think it's grotesquely unfair," Morgan told Trump. "You can support trans right to equality and fairness but understand that what's going on in sport is inherently unfair and unjust and unequal."

Trump called trans people playing in sports "ridiculous" and "sad."

Morgan brought up U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's position against having trans athletes participate in regular sports leagues. Trump agreed with the proposal.

"I agreed with [bans] long before anybody else," Trump said.

Eventually, the host asked Trump, "What is a woman?"

"I'm not going to respond to the question," Trump responded. "But a woman is somebody that swims at a certain time and doesn't get beaten by 38 seconds by somebody that wasn't even a good swimmer as a man."

Trump's vague and transphobic comment seems to refer to Thomas's victory at the NCAA Championships, where she won in the 500-meter freestyle. Her win caused many right-wing politicians and pundits to say her win shouldn't count because she's trans.

As LGBTQ Nation points out, Trump seems to say that a cisgender swimmer isn't a woman since Thomas beat Anna Kalandadze by 38 seconds at the Zippy Invitational.

Thomas, a swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania, won the match at the NCAA women's national competition in Atlanta last month. She had a winning time of 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds, 1.75 seconds ahead of the University of Virginia's Emma Weyant, according to ESPN.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis -- who signed the state's "don't say gay" bill into law -- even made a proclamation that Weyant actually should be recognized as the winner.

Republicans have been using the definition of a woman as a talking point in recent months. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Republican from Tennessee, asked Ketanji Brown Jackson how she would define a woman during Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Others, such as Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have followed suit, bringing the subject up in speeches and interviews.