President Trump signed a bevy of new executive orders Monday evening that have the potential to significantly transform the Defense Department (DOD).
The new orders prevent transgender people from openly serving in the military, greenlight the process of developing a missile defense shield to protect the U.S., and reinstate service members that voluntarily left or were forced out of the military over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Trump also penned an expected executive order that would “abolish” every diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office within the DOD and Department of Homeland Security, the latter of which houses the U.S. Coast Guard. All four were signed late Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first formal day in office.
The president revoked an executive order from his predecessor, former President Biden, penned in 2021 that allowed transgender people to serve in the military. He also directed Hegseth to set new military preparedness requirements.
Trump said “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”
The order directs the Defense Department to begin forging sketches for “an Iron Dome for America,” a missile defense system that would protect Americans from potential “ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missiles” and other space-based attacks from “peer, near-peer and rogue adversaries.” The project was discussed during the Reagan administration but was never developed.
The president vowed on the campaign trail that he would ensure service members who were either dismissed or left the military after refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine will be reinstated. He delivered on that promise late Monday, signing an order that also allows them to retain “their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments or compensation.”
“The vaccine mandate was an unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary burden on our service members,” Trump said. “Further, the military unjustly discharged those who refused the vaccine, regardless of the years of service given to our Nation, after failing to grant many of them an exemption that they should have received.”
The executive order banning DEI programs bars the Pentagon, Armed Forces and related educational institutions from promoting or advancing “un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist and irrational theories,” including suggesting the U.S.’s founding documents were “racist,” “sexist,” or pushing “gender ideology.”
It also directs Hegseth to set in motion an “internal review that documents actions taken in pursuit of DEI initiatives, including all instances of race and sex discrimination and activities designed to promote a race- or sex-based preferences system.”
The report is expected to be delivered to the Defense chief within 90 days.
