MARTHA MACCALLUM (HOST): Gen. Boykin, let me start with you. You have called this decision by President Trump “bold and courageous.” Why?

GEN. JERRY BOYKIN: Well, I think that first of all, we need to remember that this is something that he pledged to do. He talked to a group of us veterans, many of which were retired flag officers back in October of last year and this was one of the issues that came up and he pledged to make this decision. So, following through on this decision was very bold because he took on the entire LGBT community in doing so. But he did it because it's a common sense decision to make and we applaud him for doing it.

[...]

BOYKIN: I'm very passionate about this for a couple of reasons. One of which is because we've used our military as a test bed for nothing but social experiments and it's time to stop and focus on readiness. The second thing is we don't recruit people and shouldn't recruit people with any kind of physical or mental illness that would require them to go through some kind of surgery or some kind of major rehabilitation program.

Previously:

First openly gay Army Secretary debunks myth that medical services for transgender troops harm deployability

CNN military analyst: Trump's transgender military ban is a “broken” promise to troops who were told they could serve openly

Before Trump banned transgender people from serving in military, here's who praised him as pro-LGBTQ