President Donald Trump is continuing to hurl personal and racist attacks at U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., calling for the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives to be impeached for his remarks criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Hakeem Jeffries, a Low IQ individual, said our Supreme Court is “illegitimate.” After saying such a thing, isn’t he subject to Impeachment? I got impeached for A PERFECT PHONE CALL. Where are you Republicans? Why not get it started? They’ll be doing this to me!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening.
On Friday, Trump posted a picture of Jeffries holding a baseball bat in which he called the Black Democrat a “THUG” and a “danger to our Country!”
The president’s posts came days after the Supreme Court ruled on April 29 that congressional districts drawn to ensure fair representation for Black voters are not protected under Section 2 of the VRA because they are based on race and thereby are discriminatory against white voters. However, the court’s conservative majority argued that maps that dilute the voting power of Black districts are permissible under the law if it cannot be proven that the intent was racially motivated. The court ruling, penned by Justice Samuel Alito, said Republicans are allowed to target Black voters under the law because they overwhelmingly vote for one political party (Democrats).
On the day of the ruling, during a press conference with the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressman Jeffries slammed the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” and said the Voting Rights Act ruling was “designed to undermine the ability of communities of color all across this country to elect their candidate of choice.”
He added, “But we’re not here to step back. We’re here to fight back.”
Antjuan Seawright, CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC and an advisor to Jeffries, said of President Trump’s attack on the Democratic leader: “It’s not the first time that the privileged voice of Donald Trump has found it beneficial and necessary to attack an African-American leader, particularly in a time in which the African American leader has outmaneuvered him or is perceived as more astute than him.”
Jeffries, who is poised to become the first Black speaker of the U.S. House—if Democrats win the majority in November’s midterm elections—has been working to ensure victory in key states; most recently in Virginia, where voters approved the redrawing of its congressional map to give Democrats more seats in Congress in response to a Trump-led redistricting effort to do the same for Republicans in states like Texas and North Carolina.
Seawright called out the “hypocrisy” of Trump’s outrage over Jeffries’ critique of the high court, noting that Trump had whiplashed the majority conservative justices in February for ruling against his global tariffs.
“It’s OK for Donald Trump to critique the Supreme Court, but somehow another leader, Jeffries, can’t? That just goes to show you the hypocrisy that we see with Donald Trump and Republican leaders. It’s good for me, but not good for thee,” he told theGrio.
While insults from the president to the House Democratic leader are almost par for the course, Seawright notes the racial aspects of such attacks.
“He also knows that he is nowhere near, from an intelligent standpoint, on the same wavelength as Hakeem Jeffries. So the best thing he can do is try to send out toned-down right-wing red meat racial rhetoric by way of social media, in order to excite certain parts of his base,” Seawright told theGrio.
Trump’s attacks on Jeffries also come amid a rise of political violence, particularly given the fact that the Brooklyn native has already had an attempt on his life. In October 2025, Christopher Moynihan, a Jan. 6 rioter who was pardoned by Trump, was arrested for threatening to kill Jeffries.
Echoing language used by Trump, Moniyan wrote online, “I cannot allow this terrorist to live.”
“Donald Trump does that on purpose,” Seawright said of Trump’s remarks about Jeffries, adding, “You often hear Republican leaders like [Speaker Mike] Johnson and others saying that Democrats are the ones who need to tone down the temperature. We need unity. You have yet to see any of them call out the President for his erratic, nasty behavior online as it relates to Hakeem Jeffries.”
The Democratic strategist said the same can be said about Republicans when Trump posted a racist AI video of Jeffries wearing a sombrero, mocking Mexican culture.
Ultimately, Seawright says, the substance of Jeffries’ critique of the Supreme Court speaks for itself.
“It’s important for the leader, as an African American, who obviously has fought for the same fight that Dr. King and others did, to help folks understand that the court historically has been a dagger in the heart when it comes to progress in Black America,” he told theGrio.
In response to Trump’s attacks, Leader Jeffries mocked the president by resharing the Truth Social post, writing on X, “Jeffries Derangement Syndrome” — a reference to “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term Trump and Republicans have used for years against those who criticize the president.
Should Jeffries obtain the speaker’s gavel in January 2027, clashes between him and Trump will only escalate as the president would lose his ability to control Congress and be compelled to negotiate with Democrats on policy, most notably the federal budget. Trump has warned that Democrats would also seek to impeach him.
Jeffries said that one of the first acts Democrats will take as the majority in Congress is to restore the Voting Rights Act by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to “end the era of voter suppression in America once and for all.”
“America has the great opportunity to keep the comeback going by exercising your right to vote in November and making it clear that it’s not Donald Trump or his Supreme Court majority that should be the ones to decide who gets to represent you in Congress–it’s the American people,” Jeffries said at the CBC press conference last week.
