trump called a pediatrician and mom of three a trans slur, three times, in one post. the polls have the race tied. smells like panic.

Annie Andrews. Photo: Stimpus1, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

via NBC News, The Independent, Live 5 News and the Post and Courier

Annie Andrews is a pediatrician. She has three kids. She is, per NBC and The Independent, not transgender. On Monday evening the president of the United States called her an anti-trans slur three times in a single Truth Social post, and we will not be printing it, because we have some standards even if the Oval Office has misplaced its own.

Andrews is the Democrat running for Senate in South Carolina. Her opponent is Sen. Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, whom Gov. Henry McMaster appointed to the seat after her brother died in July. Trump called Graham "a High Quality person, maybe the Highest," and said Andrews was "in favor of Transgender for Everyone, Open Borders, Defunding the Police, High Taxes, a Weak Military." He finished by declaring that "South Carolina must show, in the upcoming Election, that it is not for her."

why he is bothering

South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades, NBC notes, and presidents do not usually spend their evenings on races that are in the bag. This one might not be. An InsiderAdvantage poll out last week, via Political Wire, had Graham at 46 and Andrews at 45. The Post and Courier says numerous public polls show a virtual tie, and NBC reports the Cook Political Report moved the race from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican" last month.

So: a tied race, a candidate whose whole brand is "mom and doctor," and the strongest available response was a word that is about trans people and not about her at all. Andrews has said she does not support gender surgery for minors or trans athletes in women's sports, per NBC and Live 5. That positioning bought her nothing. The slur was never about her record. It was about which word gets a crowd going.

what andrews said back

Nothing about the slur, on purpose. "As a mom and a pediatrician, I'm in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina," she said in a statement NBC got first. "If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you."

The loudest Republican response came from David Beasley, the former governor. "This is abhorrent," he wrote on X. "Elections don't have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better." Chuck Schumer called the attacks "despicable." The Human Rights Campaign called the post "the sad, disgusting, pathetic diatribes of a lame duck president with record-low approvals." The White House referred NBC to the post itself. Graham's campaign did not answer the Post and Courier's questions about it.

If the move feels familiar, it is because the administration has been workshopping anti-trans slurs out loud: the defense secretary tried one at Texas A&M and again at Quantico. Now the boss is doing it in writing. Andrews' own account, the next morning, posted a local-news clip of her health care tour with three words on top: "Bless their heart." In South Carolina, that is not a blessing.