'Here We Go Again': Experts Sound Off After Trump Calls Hakeem Jeffries A 'Thug'

President Donald Trump recently lobbed an attack against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), calling him a “thug” and a “low IQ” person. One civil rights activist said the post was a part of a familiar “playbook.”

In the midst of a rapid-fire posting spree on his Truth Social platform Friday night, Trump set his sights on Jeffries by posting an image of the representative holding a baseball bat. The image was originally posted by Jeffries himself last year with the caption: “Protecting your healthcare is as American as baseball, motherhood and apple pie.”

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Trump captioned his recent post of Jeffries, writing: “Low IQ Democrat Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, is nothing but a THUG, and he is a danger to our Country!”

The president continued his attacks in more follow-up posts on Sunday evening. He called Jeffries “low IQ” once again in a post suggesting that the representative be “impeached” for calling the Supreme Court “illegitimate.” (Members of Congress are not considered eligible for impeachment, though they can be expelled.)

Jeffries had called the court “illegitimate” in a statement criticizing its decision to strike down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana — a significant blow to the landmark Voting Rights Act.

Trump then posted the same image of Jeffries holding a bat again nearly 20 minutes later with no caption.

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While the president has used the term “thug” and “low IQ” to attack both men and women of all races, he has long been called out for his documented patternof attacking people of colorfor their intelligence alone.

Nadine Smith, president and CEO of racial justice organization Color of Change and a longtime civil rights activist, said that Trump’s post about Jeffries was intentional.

“Trump didn’t just post a photo. He chose an image of a Black congressional leader holding a baseball bat and paired it with insults to suggest menace,” she told HuffPost. “That’s the point. The image gives him plausible deniability while pushing his audience to see Jeffries as a threat.”

“We’ve watched this playbook for decades,” she continued. “It’s how Black public figures get repackaged as dangerous so people stop hearing what they’re saying and start fearing who they are.”

“Jeffries is the House minority leader,” she added. “Trump wants him seen as a threat, not just someone challenging his corruption and cruel policies that harm Americans.”

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Trump “knows what he’s doing” by calling a Black man “low IQ” and a “thug,” Smith said. 

Smith said that Trump calling Jeffries “low IQ” pulls from “a long history of using intelligence as a weapon against Black people.”

“That same framing was used to deny us schools, jobs, the vote and basic recognition as full human beings,” she said. “Trump knows what he’s doing. So does the audience he’s speaking to.”

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“When the most powerful person in the country aims that language at a Black leader, it gives everyone else permission to question whether Black people belong in rooms where real decisions get made,” she continued. “It is not a throwaway insult. It is a signal.”

And as it relates to Trump’s use of the word “thug,” Smith points out that the term has long signaled criminality and danger.

“When the word ‘thug’ enters political discourse, it is often used to narrow how Black people are perceived and what they are allowed to represent,” she said. “Applying that label in this context reinforces a pattern where Black figures are framed disrespectfully rather than with legitimacy. The broader impact shows up in how audiences internalize those cues and carry them into other areas of life.”

Peter Loge, associate professor of media and public affairs and director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University School of Media & Public Affairs, said that when he saw Trump’s post about Jeffries, his immediate thought was, “here we go again.”

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“Historically, the president’s response to criticism has been to lash out rather than either accept responsibility or change course,” he told HuffPost. “The result of his behavior is that he tends to get less popular, which leads to more lashing out.”

Loge said that people bring “meaning to images, and see that meaning reflected in those images,” so therefore Trump’s post calling Jeffries “low IQ” and a “thug” will likely resonate in a specific way with a lot of his supporters.

“A lot of the president’s supporters are racists and will see the image and think the president is making their point about Black Americans,” he said. “Those who most vocally agree with the president will see the image and shout their agreement, and a lot of those people hold frankly un-American views about race.”

“Those who disagree with the president will see the image and say, ‘See, I told you he’s a racist,’” he continued.

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Experts stress that we can’t “look away” from Trump’s ongoing attacks on social media — we have to keep calling it out.

On Friday night, Trump went on a Truth Social posting spree, posting 11 times between 11:03 p.m. and 11:45 p.m.

“The American people would probably prefer the president [spend] his time solving problems rather than ranting on social media,” Loge said. “If your son or daughter went after a classmate a dozen times in less than an hour rather than doing their homework, you’d take their phone away from them.”

Loge said it’s important that people continue to call out “bad behavior.”

“We should call out bad behavior because it is bad behavior, no matter who is doing it and whether or not it will change the world,” he said. “President Trump isn’t suddenly going to become contrite because the internet tells him to, but that doesn’t mean we should all roll our eyes as if it didn’t matter.”

Loge warned that we have “set the bar for acceptable political behavior so low” over the past decade or so.

“Elite rhetoric matters. Scholars continually find that how political elites behave informs voter behavior,” he said. “The president’s empty insults say that politics is all about insults rather than problem-solving. That’s not good for anyone, including President Trump.”

“A sitting president firing off eleven attacks in 42 minutes is not normal, and we should stop treating it like it is,” Smith said. “This is a strategy. He floods the zone with insults and racially coded language so people stop paying attention to what his administration is doing to their healthcare, their wages, their schools, and their rights.”

Smith warned that if we shrug off Trump’s rhetoric and attacks on social media, then we’ll teach the next president that that behavior is acceptable.

“So yes, we keep calling it out. Trump is not going to change,” she said. “The response isn’t to look away, it’s to stay clear-eyed, call it what it is, and keep building the kind of collective power that doesn’t get shaken by tactics like this.”

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