WASHINGTON — President Trump claimed Friday afternoon during a visit to New York that home-state Rep. Hakeem Jeffries inspired his demeaning new nickname for Democrats.
“I was thinking about this character we have in the House, his name is Hakeem Jeffries, and he’s a low IQ person, very low IQ,” Trump told his audience in Rockland County.
“And I watched what he was saying and the horrible things he was saying, and I said, ‘He’s a dumb guy.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, he’s a Dumocrat.’ That’s how I got the name.”
Trump jokingly told his crowd that “a lot of people don’t know dumb has a ‘b’ in it. Actually, you don’t need it.”
“They are Dumocrats,” he said. “You know why? Because their policies are dumb.”
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Jeffries, who represents Brooklyn, outraged Trump last month by referring to him as “the dumbest president ever” — responding to the commander in chief’s own demeaning remarks about his IQ.
“If Donald Trump wants to debate me anytime, anyplace, in the Oval Office, publicly, on camera, I’d be happy to do it,” Jeffries taunted.
“I’ve got no doubts as to what the outcome would be. It’s extraordinary to me that Donald Trump keeps recycling this low IQ insults. This is from the dumbest president ever.”
Trump made clear during his New York speech that he finds the insult intolerable when applied to himself.
“I don’t mind being called a brilliant total tyrant dictator, but I don’t want to be called dumb,” Trump joked, before recounting how doctors administered three cognitive tests, which he has “aced” all three times.
“Nice to be smart,” Trump said.
Jeffries is expected to become House speaker if Democrats win the Nov. 3 midterms — a role in which he would lead expected efforts to investigate and possibly impeach Trump and block his legislative priorities.
Trump appeared in the Hudson Valley to rouse support for Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the lone Republican incumbent seeking re-election from a district carried in 2024 by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump called Lawler a “pain in the a–” in a back-handed compliment recalling the Republican’s role in raising the state and local tax (SALT) deduction as part of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Midterm elections typically feature lower turnout, giving extra incentive for parties to turn out their own lower-propensity voters.
A spokesman for Jeffries did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
