There's a version of this roll call where somebody says something ugly once, gets caught, and issues the standard non-apology. This isn't that. This is the President of the United States running the same bit twice in ten weeks, in two different rooms, on camera, on purpose.
January 20th, White House press briefing
Marking his first anniversary back in office, Trump spent nearly two hours in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Somalia came up. Here is what the President said about a community of American citizens:
"They all ought to get the hell out of here, they're bad for our country."
President Donald Trump, January 20, 2026
On Minnesota:
"Nineteen billion dollars at a minimum is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians... a lot of very low IQ people."
On the country itself: "Somalia's not even a country... considered just about the worst in the world." And on a sitting member of Congress: "I always hate to see this Ilhan Omar. She comes from Somalia, a backward country, probably the worst country."
Here's a detail worth sitting with. When the President finished and took questions, per Talking Points Memo, not one reporter in that room asked him about any of it. Two hours, a full press corps, and the phrase "very low IQ people" just went by like a weather report.
March 26th, Cabinet meeting
Ten weeks later, at a Cabinet meeting nominally about the war in Iran, he went back to the well:
"They come to our country, low IQs, and they rob us blind. Stupid people, and they rob us blind because we have crooked politicians and we have dirty cops."
President Donald Trump, March 26, 2026
Same phrase. Same construction. Ten weeks apart. That's not a gaffe, that's a talking point.
He also took a swing at Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in the same breath, calling him "a dirty cop." Ellison, who is Black and Muslim, answered on X the same day:
"If Donald Trump thinks Minnesotans will turn on our neighbors, he doesn't understand this state."
Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General
The part that isn't funny
Let's be precise about who is being described here, because precision is the whole point of this site. The majority of Somali Americans in Minnesota are United States citizens. They are not guests. They vote, pay taxes, and send their kids to school in a state their President just described as being robbed blind by stupid people.
"Low IQ" is not a slip of the tongue and it is not a policy critique. It is race science with the lab coat taken off. It says these people are constitutionally, biologically less intelligent than you. That idea has a long history in this country, and it never once ended with a strongly worded letter.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, who Trump named personally, put the risk plainly: hateful rhetoric at this level of dehumanization, she warned, "can lead to dangerous actions."
CAIR-MN made the same point, noting that labeling an entire minority as intellectually inferior contributes to an environment where Somali Americans face increased hostility and discrimination.
No dogwhistle needed here. No decoder ring, no charitable reading, no "what he meant was." He said low IQ. He said stupid people. He said get the hell out of here. Then he said it again in March in case anyone missed it.
File it under: things that keep happening by pure coincidence.
Sources: Talking Points Memo on the January briefing, WCCO Radio on the March Cabinet meeting, and CAIR-MN's response.
Write to the Editor