MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For two days in a row, the president has gone on racist tirades against the Somali community in Minnesota.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country, and all they do is complain, complain, complain.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In a ramble that went on for several minutes on Wednesday, the president talked about Somalis as a group, including many citizens who employ him. Trump also talked about deporting Omar, a U.S. citizen who is a member of Congress. In the middle of his discussion, he threw in a mention of former President Obama, although Trump did not say what he thought Obama and Somalis might have in common. He was following up on Tuesday's ramble when he discussed Somalis and others convicted of defrauding social service programs in Minnesota.
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TRUMP: We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, let's go. Come on, let's make this place great.
MARTIN: NPR's Mara Liasson is here to tell us more about all this. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So, you know, Mara, we've heard Trump target immigrant groups before, from the first day of his first campaign for president, in fact. But calling an entire community of people garbage, I mean, is there something different here?
LIASSON: Yes. I think even by Trump's standards of nativism and xenophobia, these attacks were pretty harsh. You know, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has been one of Trump's favorite targets for quite some time. He belittled her on social media recently, saying she's, quote, "always wrapped in her swaddling hijab." He's told her to go back where she came from, even though she's an American citizen. And this does come, as you say, at a time when there's this big financial scandal in Minnesota - federal prosecutors have convicted or indicted dozens of people for defrauding social services funding, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Most of those convicted are of Somali descent. The vast majority of Somalis in the Minneapolis region are U.S. citizens, but the situation has provided the chance for Trump to attack Omar and the entire Somali community. And here's what he said.
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TRUMP: They contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you.
MARTIN: So let me just say here that there's no evidence that what he said is accurate. But having said that, what do you think he gains from this?
LIASSON: I think this has been a tried-and-true tactic for him over the last 10 years, these nativist attacks. I think they attract attention. They can distract from problems he's having. You know, he denigrated Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. During the 2024 campaign, he and JD Vance repeated false rumors that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs.
MARTIN: Could it be that he's also lashing out because he's frustrated? I mean, he's - his approval ratings are low. He has not achieved a number of the things that he claimed he was going to achieve, including peace in Ukraine, etc, and I just wonder if this part of the way he reacts to situations where he's not doing well.
LIASSON: I think that's right. His approval ratings are low. His base is solid, but independents give him a 25% approval rating, and Republicans are going to need those independent voters in the 2026 elections. Maybe they would rather have him bring prices down than attack immigrants.
MARTIN: So we don't know whether this is going to continue. As we mentioned, this has gone on for a couple of days now. The President is meeting with some African leaders today. How do you...
LIASSON: That's right.
MARTIN: ...Think that's going to go?
LIASSON: Well, they're not from Somalia. They're from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They're here to sign a U.S.-brokered peace deal. Trump is taking credit for solving the conflict between these two countries, and he's adding this to a long list of wars he claims to have ended. It's all part of him making the case for why he should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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