Is Trump a Racist? Let’s Look at the Stats.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris at a presidential debate on September 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. Alex Brandon/AP

Last month, when MAGA luminaries Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Joe Kent turned on Trump over his impulsive war against Iran and his threat to destroy its “whole civilization,” Trump decried this gang as “low IQ.” That was an unusual move for him—in that three of the four are white.

As has been observed by others, Trump often hurls the “low IQ” insult at Black people. For some, that’s a sign he’s a racist. There certainly are others: His family real estate business was sued in the 1970s by the Justice Department for racial discrimination; he exploited the racially charged case of the Central Park Five in 1989, when five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of raping a jogger; he peddled the racist and fraudulent birther conspiracy about Barack Obama; people who worked with him on The Apprentice say he used racial slurs, including the n-word; he referred to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries”; he called on Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries; he characterized Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists; during a 2020 campaign debate, he refused to condemn white supremacists; he has appointed people with racist records and ties to white nationalists; he shared a video on social media that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

Then there’s his vicious assault on DEI and wokeness—and his hiring practices. As of the 300-day mark of his current term, 91 percent of his confirmed appointees were white. For Biden that figure was 61 percent. (About 60 percent of the current US population is white.) Photos like this one of Trump’s US attorneys tell the story:

Look, there’s one brown guy! And only a handful of gals.

So it’s not tough to make the case that Trump is a racist. And it’s easy to cite his frequent use of “low IQ” to denigrate Black people as another data point showing he’s a bigot. But might Trump just be a jerk who calls a lot of his critics and foes “low IQ”?

I asked the director of a research shop—which would prefer to not be named—to crunch the numbers on this. These bean counters looked at both Trump’s social media posts and his public statements. The findings are no surprise.

This team examined his Truth Social posts for the past four years, ending on April 10. In that stretch, Trump called individuals and communities “low IQ” at least 50 times, and 60 percent of these instances involved Black public figures and legislators. These targets included Vice President Kamala Harris; Reps. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.); the Rev. Al Sharpton; New York Attorney General Letitia James; and political strategist Donna Brazile. The white people he excoriated in this fashion included Joe Biden, Tim Walz, Liz Cheney, and Robert De Niro. 

Since April 10, Trump has zapped out nine Truth Social posts deploying the “low IQ” tag. Six times his missive referred to a Black person—House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, or Owens. Once the target was Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.); another time, Carlson. And there was that post that railed against his MAGA antagonists: Kelly, Kent, Carlson, and Owens.

The tilt is clear. Trump reaches for this characterization more often when he’s denouncing Black people. Notice, though, that it’s just not Black people but Black women who draw much of Trump’s wrath.

That pattern holds when the data set expands beyond his Truth Social rants. Those researchers also scrutinized a collection of Trump’s public statements for the past 10 years, searching through a repository of C-SPAN videos that covered Trump speaking at rallies, press briefings, and other events. They found he deployed the “low IQ” aspersion at least 75 times. Forty of these instances—53 percent—targeted Black people. He also used it to describe Somali and Hispanic immigrants.

Harris clocked in with the most mentions (23). Biden was next (17). Then came Waters (8), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (5), and Crockett (3). Trump claimed Harris was too “low IQ” to be president. In October, he said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was “low IQ” and could not pass a cognitive test.

Last week, speaking at The Villages, a retirement community in Florida full of Trumpers, he also declared that Barack Obama could not pass a cognitive test. In the past, he has often derided Obama’s intelligence and suggested he was accepted at Columbia University and Harvard Law School only due to his race. The idea that the first Black president was a smart fellow seems to be too tough for Trump to accept.

If you want to get technical—and give Trump the benefit of the doubt—you could argue that since Democrats (and Democratic politicians) are disproportionately Black compared to the overall population, Trump’s political enemies will more likely be Black than an average sampling of Americans. Consequently, more targets of his “low IQ” slur will be Black. But it does seem that Trump often picks nasty fights with Black opponents—and relishes doing so. And there are plenty of ways to assail a political foe without calling him or her an idiot.

Trump has long displayed an obsession with IQ. He believes people are either born with intelligence or they’re not, and he has asserted that immigrants have brought “bad genes” into the country. He has frequently boasted his IQ is sky-high, attributing that to his “good genes” and pointing to his uncle, John Trump, who was a highly accomplished MIT professor. He has never made public any IQ test he’s taken, though he regularly brags about passing cognitive tests that screen for dementia. (Lion, rhinoceros, camel!) For him, “low IQ” is one of the most stinging insults he can sling. It’s hard not to attach significance to the fact that he so often hurls this barb at Black people.

To make the case that Trump is a racist, it’s not necessary to rely on his use of this epithet. But it’s an obvious piece of evidence. One would have to be not the sharpest tool in the shed to not see the connection.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Donald Trump has screwed the pooch in Iran. He impulsively launched a war—based on a “feeling,” according to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt—for which he had no strategic plan. He initially struggled to explain its purpose. But the explanation he tends to give is that his goal was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—a capability he previously claimed he had “obliterated” in June with bombing raids on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Trump often says Tehran was two weeks away from possessing a nuclear weapon. Naturally, that’s a lie. At the start of the war, Iran had the ability to refine the enriched uranium it possessed to bomb-grade level within two weeks. After that it would take months, if not a year, to make a bomb.

Now the challenge Trump faces is how to end this war with Tehran blocked from building a nuclear weapon. What makes this so dumb is that Trump is moving toward the sort of deal that was signed and sealed a decade ago—and that he ripped up.

In 2015, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran that severely constrained its nuclear program. Under its terms, Iran gave up most of the enriched uranium it possessed and from then on was permitted to enrich uranium only to the level of 3.67 percent. (Bomb grade material needs to be 90 percent enriched.) And Iran agreed to submit to international inspections. The deal wasn’t perfect. But it meant that if Iran broke out of the agreement, it couldn’t develop a bomb quickly.

A year into his first term, Trump tore up this accord, and Iran responded by revving up its uranium enrichment program. The below chart from the New York Times illustrates what happened. You can see Iran had a ton—actually, 20 tons—of uranium enriched to 5 percent prior to the deal. Afterward, it had a minuscule amount.

But once Trump ended the Iran deal, Tehran steadily amassed a stockpile of uranium enriched to 2 percent, 5 percent, and 20 percent. And in the past two years—especially last year—it dramatically upped its store of 60 percent–enriched uranium (the black bars on the chart) to about half a ton. That’s the highly enriched uranium it could relatively quickly refine for use in a bomb—and that now is the major concern.

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA led to the situation that he claims (unjustifiably) warranted a full-scale war. And now the negotiations to end that war—such as they are—may eventually, if we’re lucky, yield a deal that resembles the JCPOA.

Thanks to Trump’s actions in 2018 and this year, Iran has more highly enriched uranium and more reason to want to develop a nuclear weapon. His dumb decision eight years ago yielded his dumb war.

Check out the New York Times interactive version of this chart here.

Inspired by this chart, I made another one depicting the fissile material and nuclear warheads possessed by North Korea, another nuclear proliferation worry. Remember how Trump, in his first term, was all buddy-buddy with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un? They sent each other what Trump called “beautiful letters.” They met thrice. What did Trump get out of all that? A North Korea with more nuclear warheads.

Estimates of North Korea's Stockpile of Nuclear Warheads

Hijack. The Apple TV+ action thriller starring Idris Elba may have the distinction of being the television series that experienced the sharpest descent in quality from one season to the next. Its first outing, which premiered in January 2024, is a taut and masterfully constructed tale of an airline hijacking conveyed in real time over seven episodes. Elba plays corporate negotiator Sam Nelson, who’s on a flight from Dubai to London that’s taken over by a band of English- and Arabic-speaking hijackers. It’s quickly made clear that this is not your average hijacking, and Nelson uses his well-honed negotiating skills—which include assorted psychological tricks—to wheedle his way into the gang of skyjackers to figure out what’s really behind this crime and how he can save everyone.

There’s a fair bit of ingenuity to the plot. And Elba is fantastic. Those eyes. They say more than the words he speaks. That first season of Hijack was a fun ride. Very binge-able. It demonstrated that the team behind the James Bond movies would be nuts not to nab Elba to be the next JB—before he ages out of the role.

Then came season 2, released earlier this year. I can’t say too much without giving away key plot twists. Then again, it’s not worth the time to watch. Nelson is now not a hijackee, but the hijacker. Sort of. It’s a year after the airliner caper, and Nelson, a bit down and out (for reasons I won’t share here), is in Berlin. And he hijacks a U-Bahn train that is full of passengers and rigged with bombs that will detonate if anyone tries to exit any of its cars. In return for the hostages, Nelson demands to be handed an international criminal mastermind who’s connected to the aforementioned airliner hijacking. But clearly, this is not just about revenge. There are other forces at work. Nelson—with those eyes—cannot be the bad guy.

There are clever moments in season 2, as Nelson outwits the German police trying to intercept the train and susses out who’s pulling what strings. But the level of convolution is at least an 11, as various intrigues involving assorted security services and double agents come into play. And, ultimately, a lot happens that doesn’t make sense, including the grand finale. The lesson of the second flight of Hijack: Not all good things deserve a sequel. This is a train ride that’s way too long. With this show, take the plane and skip the subway.

Honora, Flea. Did you know that Flea, the hyperactive bassist who gave the Red Hot Chili Peppers their signature sound, was also a jazz trumpeter? Well, he didn’t either. Not until recently. A few years ago, while he was on a two-year-long tour with the band and figuring out what he wanted to do with his life having turned 60, he decided to spend time every day practicing the trumpet, which he had played as a kid but not since. His goal: to make a jazz album. Sounds a bit fanciful? But Flea knew what he was doing.

In March, he released Honora, and it’s an engaging collection of tunes that tend to blend ethereal melodies with a post-bop sensibility. His trumpet playing, obviously styled after Miles Davis, gets the job done. Of course, the bass lines on the tracks stand out. On “Traffic Lights,” Thom Yorke of Radiohead sings dreamy lyrics. But more original is Nick Cave’s cameo on “Wichita Lineman,” the marvelous Jimmy Webb classic. A truly winning number is Flea’s lovely instrumental version of Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You.”

There’s good reason to resent Flea. He’s one of the top bassists of all time. (No. 22 on the Rolling Stone list of greatest bass players.) Then he decides he wants to be a jazz trumpeter and pulls it off? That’s too much talent for one guy.