Summary: President Trump has repeatedly labeled Black critics and public figures as "low IQ," a pattern that should be recognized as racist rather than dismissed as mere insults. A review of his public posts shows he disproportionately directs this slur at Black figures, while scholars note IQ testing’s eugenic roots and biased uses. Attempting to rebut the slur with test scores misses the point: the tactic is meant to demean. Journalists should identify and report these comments as racist.
Trump’s “Low IQ” Smears Are Racist — A Pattern Of Dehumanizing Black Critics
There’s no denying what Trump’s ‘low IQ’ insult is
President Donald Trump has repeatedly branded Black critics and public figures as "low IQ," a rhetorical pattern that goes beyond rude name-calling and functions as racial dehumanization. What might be dismissed as another insult from Trump is part of a consistent pattern that disproportionately targets Black politicians, commentators and community leaders.
One recent example involved ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith. After Smith — a well-known New York Knicks fan — predicted his team would lose a Madison Square Garden NBA Finals game if Trump attended, the president told reporters:
“I think he’s a nice guy. You need a certain aptitude to run for president. You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that. I don’t think he does, actually.”
Trump has used the "low IQ" label against a long list of public figures, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Rep. Maxine Waters. He also disparaged New York Attorney General Letitia James after she prevailed against him in court. While Trump has occasionally applied the slur to white figures such as Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a review by Mother Jones of four years of his social posts found he primarily directs the "low IQ" insult at Black public figures.
Trump’s attacks extend beyond elected officials. He has disparaged immigrant groups (for example, Somalis) and others with similar slurs. Members of his family and allies have likewise used the same rhetoric, as when Donald Trump Jr. described Haitians as having "low IQs" and claimed it was "just fact."
Why The Charge Matters
Claims about IQ carry a fraught history. Scholars have documented how intelligence testing was shaped by eugenic thinking and has often been used to justify exclusion and discrimination. Ajitha Reddy’s 2008 DePaul Law Review article, "The Eugenic Origins of IQ Testing," explains that popular assumptions about IQ — that intelligence is fixed, precisely measurable, and expressible by a single number — are false. Instead, IQ tests often predict performance within an existing social structure and can reflect socioeconomic disadvantage rather than an intrinsic, immutable human worth.
Even if one tried to respond to Trump's slurs with test scores, that approach misses the point. Trump is not debating cognitive metrics; he is promoting a slanderous stereotype intended to demean and marginalize. Attempting to "prove" someone’s intelligence in response to a racialized insult implicitly validates the premise that an IQ number defines human value.
What Journalists And Citizens Should Do
Labeling these remarks as mere "insults" or writing them off as "Trump being Trump" obscures their racial intent and impact. Reporters and commentators should describe this pattern accurately: when a public figure repeatedly singles out Black people with a derogatory epithet tied to intelligence, it should be identified as racist and dehumanizing rhetoric. Naming the behavior correctly is essential to holding leaders accountable and protecting the dignity of those targeted — particularly for Black children who see powerful figures denigrate people who look like them.
Bottom line: Trump’s repeated use of the "low IQ" slur is more than crude rhetoric; it is a racially patterned tactic that exploits a problematic history of intelligence testing to demean and marginalize Black people. It deserves to be called out as such.
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