We are used to politicians and government officials having sign language interpreters alongside when they deliver important messages so that the hearing impaired could also benefit from what is being said. But I had missed the fact that Trump had canceled them for his events.
Now a federal judge has ordered that they be brought back.
A federal judge has ordered the White House to restore real-time American Sign Language interpretation at all press briefings conducted by President Donald Trump or press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali said the Trump White House’s decision to end ASL interpretation illegally excluded deaf Americans from crucial updates from the government on matters of war, the economy and public health. And evidence shows, Ali noted, that closed captioning and transcripts are insufficient alternatives.
…The ruling is a victory for the National Association of the Deaf, which said its members had suffered since January, when the Trump White House nixed the Biden-era policy using ASL interpreters for key White House communications. The group argued that the administration’s decision to rescind ASL interpretation violated the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which was expanded in 1978 to bar the government from excluding people with disabilities from government programming and communications.
…Ali, a Biden appointee, puzzled over a suggestion by the Trump administration that requiring ASL interpretation to accompany presidential press conferences would be a “major incursion” on the administration’s prerogatives. Disliking the “image” of ASL interpreters alongside the president is not a basis to defy the Rehabilitation Act’s requirements, Ali said.
“Moreover … ASL interpretation does not require a speaker to ‘share his platform’ with anyone,” the judge added. “The evidence shows, and the court finds, that the defendants can readily implement remote ASL interpretation without an interpreter present in the same room as the speaker.”
So it appears that the narcissist-in-chief thinks that being associated in any way with deafness looks bad for him, just like he does not want to have wounded soldiers at his events. He seems to have also felt that having the ASL interpreter sharing the screen with him would take away attention from him. And of course, he wants everyone to be focused on him and him alone.
Although it would be so easy to comply with the judge’s ruling, Trump will probably appeal, like he does every ruling that goes against him, claiming as usual that the the judge was biased against him.
What a jerk.
I wonder if it’s an intentional attempt to set a precedent in court. The Trump administration has been trying to establish that presidential executive power is broad, unquestionable and can’t be constrained by law or court. It’s a common strategy when trying to setup a broad position in law to start with some unimportant corner case. I don’t think Trump could have organized this but somebody at Project 2025 might have organized a strategy of trying to set precedent in court on something less significant then expelling people from the country or sending in the military.
I think it’s both. There has been some systematic malice going on but it can be personal too.
Good ol’ Charlie Squeezeface was ranting about ASL signers being “too much” back in January:
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“Can we please just go away with half the screen during these emergency briefings to the sign language interpreters? I have nothing against, obviously, people that cannot hear, but there’s closed captioning. I mean, this is just over the top. We can’t do this. We gotta get back to how it used to be. It’s just, oh, it’s just too much. It’s a distraction is what it is. The reason is they do these emergency briefings for fires or terrorist attacks, and you’re looking at this and you’re not listening. I don’t like it. So we got — we just gotta — closed captioning’s perfectly fine. I think we have to — we gotta get back to basics here.” video
Too D.E.I.? Too woke?
😉
An ASL interpreter raises the possibility that some people might not be looking directly at Mr. Empathy, and thus he wouldn’t be the constant center of attention. Can’t have that. And as far as CK is concerned, basically he was a Nazi, so what else would you expect?