Trump bans transgenders from military service

[All Along The Watchtower]

IIRC, General Mattis was the driving force behind this, no?  

He pushed back against an outright ban but helped to delay a decision on it. I'm assuming Trump in his tweet "with the generals" was the JCS and SecDef. Curious to see how that one was decided, split or unanimous.

Yeah I mean I'm not really behind this decision but I doubt Trump just decided on his own without both the JCS and Mattis supporting it.

A more likely culprit for driving force on this decision: the Vice President.

[All Along The Watchtower]

How likely is it that Pence, Bannon, and a few hard-line Culture Warriors in the White House (and perhaps Congress as well) were lobbying for the transgender ban behind the scenes when Trump tweeted this uh, "policy announcement?" I'm thinking it might have went down like this:

PENCE/BANNON, et.al: Mr. President, we want you to push for a ban on transgender people serving in the military
TRUMP: OK, whatever guys! Sounds terrific!
*tweets*
PENCE::"...that's...not the proce"
BANNON: "Shut up Mike, don't second-guess the Commander-in-Chief!"