President Donald Trump came off unintelligibly Tuesday while comparing the Democratic Party to Somalia.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump appeared to brag that he didn’t even know the names of the Democratic lawmakers hoping to speak with him about ending the government shutdown.
“I’m getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before. And they’re claiming to be l—the Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia,” Trump said.
Appearing pleased with his weirdly racist analogy, Trump continued babbling.
“And I met the president of Somalia, told him about the problem it’s got. I said ‘You got somebody from Somalia that’s telling us how to run our country, from Somalia.’ I said, ‘Would you like to take her back?’ He said, ‘No, I don’t want her!’” Trump ranted incoherently.
Trump: I’m getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before. The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia. I met the president of Somalia. pic.twitter.com/aJWX0oY898
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 7, 2025
Trump was referring to Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, who has previously been targeted with threats of deportation by racist Republicans. The president, who has a tendency to repeat himself, was rehashing a joke he made earlier this month at Omar’s expense when he claimed he’d asked Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud if the Michigan lawmaker could be “taken back” to her home country.
Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t know who the Democrats are, and that they have no leaders, tells you everything you need to know about how seriously Trump is taking efforts to end the government shutdown. His own spokesperson revealed Monday that she wasn’t aware of any efforts the president had taken to speak with Democrats directly, but he is instead working through his own proxies in the House and Senate.
Trump previously met with very real Democratic leaders House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (whom Trump has repeatedly called a “Palestinian,” as another form of racist insult) ahead of the shutdown last week. But the president used the meeting as a meme photo op before proceeding to blame Democrats for the shutdown, as well as his administration’s efforts to enact massive layoffs and illegally withhold back pay from furloughed workers.
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