Overview
- Trump, who used the slur in a CNBC Squawk Box interview Tuesday, labeled House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “a totally low IQ person.”
- Hours after the Tuesday interview, MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell aired the clip and Jeffries answered on The Last Word by calling Trump “the dumbest person ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
- Jeffries shifted from the insult to policy, saying Republicans failed on the economy, health care, and immigration, and asserting a “reckless and costly” Middle East war has left more than a dozen Americans dead and over 400 wounded.
- Coverage noted Trump’s recurring use of “low IQ” as an insult, with recent targets including Tucker Carlson, underscoring a pattern that media outlets replay and dissect.
- Fox News also reported that Trump repeated the “low IQ” label in a Tuesday Truth Social post while defending a military operation he touted in the region, signaling how the fight over words and war is driving the partisan news cycle.