Trump Disparages Somali Community During State Of The Union

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address in U.S. history, at one hour and 48 minutes, which indicates one thing: The president was desperate to convince Americans to love him, and turn around the abysmal poll numbers he has suffered for nearly the entirety of his second term so far.
The problem with Trump is that he doesn’t understand that, especially when it comes to him, less is more.
If Trump wanted people to see him as a better, more dignified president, and a better, less deplorable human being, he needed to give us less barely coherent rambling, less outward bigotry and denigration of entire non-white ethnic groups, less of his tired blaming of his predecessors for all of his failings, and fewer easily debunked lies. Instead, he gave us more — an hour and 48 minutes of more of the same old lying, bigoted, perpetually-aggrieved President Donald Trump.
Let’s start with the part where Trump circles back to the years-old fraud scandal in Minnesota as an excuse to resume spreading hate speech behind a podium about the entire Somali community in Minnesota and across the globe.
“When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” Trump claimed, prompting Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar — whom Trump has attacked numerous times, often just for being of Somali descent — to shout, “That’s a lie — you’re lying!”
Undeterred, Trump just kept on lying and being an absolute bigot.
“The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception,” Trump continued. “Importing these cultures through immigration and open borders brings us problems right here, to the U.S.A., and it is the American people who pay the price…”
So, first, let’s start with the fact check on the fraud case in Minnesota.
From CBS News:
President Trump’s “estimated $19 billion dollars” figure refers to the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported over a dozen state-run programs in Minnesota since 2018.
The exact extent of the fraud and losses is still being investigated. In December 2025, a top prosecutor suggested the total amount of fraud could be $9 billion or more.
More than 90% of the people charged in major fraud cases announced before December 2025 were of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota. But the number of people of Somali descent charged, 82 individuals, is a small fraction of the Somali community across the state. Census Bureau data shows that there are more than 107,000 people who identify as Somali in the state.
Trump didn’t just, once again, disparage 107,000 Somali residents over what 82 of them were charged for doing — while completely ignoring the fact that a white American woman, Aimee Bock, was named by the government as the mastermind behind the fraud scheme — he also disparaged Somalis everywhere, by generalizing them as “pirates,” invoking the scourge of Somali piracy that has largely occurred off the coast of Somalia.
Trump also took the opportunity to launch into a white nationalist rant about “cultures” — a clear reference to Black and brown foreign cultures, as he has made it abundantly clear that white immigrants are not his target — being imported into the U.S. and changing the fabric of this great, white nation. (He didn’t say all that in so many words, but since we are all well accustomed to the “culture” of whiteness, we know a watered-down white supremacist speech when we hear one.)
Trump also announced that he had appointed Vice President JD Vance to head the investigation of Somali fraud in Minnesota — which had already been thoroughly investigated since 2021 — because who better to head a racist, largely political witch hunt against an entire ethnic group than the guy who led a racist, propaganda-reliant witch hunt against the entire Haitian community by promoting lies about Haitian people abducting and eating pets in Ohio?
Early on during Trump’s speech, Democratic Rep. Al Green was removed from the auditorium for holding up a sign that read, “Black people aren’t apes,” a reference to Trump posting an AI-generated image of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes, which resulted in him spending a couple of weeks defending himself against allegation of anti-Black racism by parading around all of the Black friends he pretends to have.
In hindsight, it seems kind of pointless to toss Green out just for displaying a reminder that Trump is racist, if the president was just going to go on to deliver a speech that serves as a reminder that Trump is racist.
Anyway, when Trump wasn’t using his time on stage to be the old, white bigot he demonstrably is, he was keeping fact-checkers busy by perpetuating his usual lies about Democrats cheating in elections, him saving the U.S. from violent crime that had already been trending downwards for decades, the wars he supposedly ended, prices supposedly going down in U.S. grocery stores and gas stations, and his tariffs — most of which were struck down by the Supreme Court last week — bringing prosperity to the U.S. by bringing in revenue, lying about the amount of revenue they brought in, and omitting the glaring fact that what revenue they did bring in largely came out of the pockets of the American consumer.
Again, it was all just more of the same old Trump, only for one hour and 48 minutes, this time.
Sad.
SEE ALSO:
State Of The Union 2026: This Man Be Lying Edition
‘Black People Are Not Apes’ Is Not A Political Strategy
President Trump Sang The Same Old Song During State Of The Union Address
Trump’s Rambling State Of The Union Was Light On Actual Facts
Trump Disparages Somali Community During State Of The Union was originally published on newsone.com
