During a memorial service for the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in 2025, President Donald Trump made a stunningly candid admission when he said, “I hate my opponents.” His opponents don’t exactly love him, either, and some of the Black members of Congress, fed up with the limits of respectability politics, are dropping it to fire back at him.
“At a time of hyper-partisanship, the traditional way of operating doesn’t always work,” said Kimberly Peeler-Allen, the co-founder of Higher Heights for America, a group that focuses on the development of political leadership among Black women. “We are seeing newer Black members take different tactics to try to force compromise, to varying degrees of success.”
Scores of people have fallen into Trump’s crosshairs during his time in office. But he has reserved a special kind of animus for a handful of elected and appointed Black public officials, according to analysts and communications scholars. Among them are a few masters of clapback, and some who bite their tongues in an effort to make what U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina called headway rather than headlines.
National Public Radio’s 2019 analysis of Trump’s tweets showed that he had disparaged the “Squad” of four Democratic congresswomen of color, two of whom are Black, and a Black male representative more often — and more extremely — than he did U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, white people who had vied for his office.
Under his second administration, his attacks against Black leaders and their counterattacks have intensified, as he fulfills his vow of retribution against his enemies, said Peeler-Allen. More often than not, Trump denigrates their intelligence by saying that they have low IQs. And his attacks have moved from the realm of rhetoric into executive actions that have included firing, investigations, and seeking charges against certain Black officials and others.
Capital B examined NPR’s 2019 list of Trump’s targets and researched which Black public officials in the second Trump administration are getting and sometimes giving the most heat. Read on for a look at some of the Black officials who have crossed swords with Trump at a time when Congress has generally acquiesced to the president’s push for greater executive powers.
“He is attacking Black leaders like myself for speaking truth to power, supporting our Black community, and being everything he is not,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the Squad, told Capital B in a statement.
A White House spokeswoman, Olivia Wales, told Capital B in a statement: “President Trump works with leaders of every race, religion, and creed who seek to advance his popular, commonsense America First agenda.”
The statement named as examples of Black officials Trump has enjoyed a collaborative relationship with Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Dr. Ben Carson, Housing and Urban Development secretary in Trump’s first administration.
“It’s clear that President Trump is working around the clock to make our country better than ever before — without indulging in the lunatic antics of low-IQ Democrats like Al Green and Jasmine Crockett,” the statement added.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas
One of Trump’s main adversaries in his second term has been U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from Texas, who is one of his most visible and voluble congressional opponents.
Who is she? Since 2023, Crockett has been the U.S. representative for Texas’s 30th congressional district, which includes much of Dallas. A civil rights attorney, she has built a national profile by focusing on voting access, criminal justice reform, and government accountability.
This month, she lost her bid to become Texas’s Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in a high-profile primary race against Texas state Rep. James Talarico, and is scheduled to leave Congress when her current term expires in 2027.
How has she clashed with Trump? Crockett is known for her bitter feuds with Trump, often sparring with him over his immigration crackdown, his voting and election policies, and his attacks on his political opponents, and has criticized timid congressional oversight of him.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Crockett is one the leading challengers of the unwritten rules of decorum and respectability that Black public officials have long accepted, and has confronted Trump and her opponents in Congress with extraordinary bluntness.
Crockett has said that Trump “has never been known to be an Einstein,” and has called him a “wannabe dictator” for lashing out at lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, who have toured U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers or questioned ICE agents who have apprehended people. McIver was prosecuted by the administration after she toured a detention center in her district.
Trump, meanwhile, has responded that Crockett is a “lowlife” and a “very low-IQ person.”
U.S. Rep. Al Green of Texas
Another of Trump’s most visible and voluble congressional opponents is U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Texas.
Who is he? Considered part of the old guard of Black lawmakers, Green has been in Congress since 2005, and is competing to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th Congressional District. It includes parts of Houston and used to be represented by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
How has he clashed with Trump? Green and Trump have clashed over Trump’s push to redistrict Texas, Trump’s posting on social media of a video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, and whether Trump should be impeached.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Green made headlines last month when he was escorted from the State of the Union Address after breaking decorum rules and holding up a sign reading, “Black People Aren’t Apes!” — a reference to the video Trump had shared. After Green was removed from the chamber, Trump merely said “thank you” and continued speaking.
Green was also escorted out of the House in 2025, after he disrupted Trump’s joint session of Congress and House Speaker Mike Johnson called for his removal. Near the start of Trump’s speech, when the president claimed that the 2024 election offered him “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades,” Green interrupted. He shouted that Trump has “no mandate,” specifically no mandate to cut Medicaid, the health care program that some 80 million Americans use.
Trump later told Fox News that Green is “a fool and a clown” and “should be forced to pass an IQ test because he is a low-IQ individual, and we don’t need low-IQ individuals in Congress.”
Green has also slammed Trump’s success at persuading Texas to draw a more Republican-friendly congressional map that dilutes Black votes in the state, calling it an effort to “infuse racism into Texas redistricting policies.” Trump has backed his party’s efforts, claiming that Republicans are “entitled” to additional seats.
Notable, too, is that Green became the first congressperson to formally call for Trump’s impeachment from the House floor in 2017, urging lawmakers to bring charges against the president. Green has made these calls for impeachment repeatedly.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, is a member of the Squad, a group that has been a target of Trump’s political attacks since his first administration.
Who is she? Since 2019, Omar has represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered in 2020. Omar is the first Somali American — and one of the first Muslim women — to enter Congress. She was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
How has she clashed with Trump? Omar has been one of the loudest congressional critics of Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since enforcement operations began in Minnesota. She has said that the administration is “terrorizing a community” and that “every single” ICE agent “should be out of Minnesota.”
Another core disagreement has been over Trump’s moves to cut or freeze foreign aid programs, including work by the United States Agency for International Development. Omar has said that such work is popular “not just with Democrats, but with Republicans.”
What barbs and blows have they traded? The president has often made derogatory comments about Omar’s background. In 2025, he described her and Somali migrants as “garbage” and said that they should leave the country; Omar responded by saying that his “obsession” with her is “creepy.”
In 2023, the Republican-controlled House voted along party lines to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over past remarks she made about Israel. Omar suggested that her Republican colleagues were bowing to pressure from Trump, who was running for reelection and had already frequently impugned her. In 2019, Trump criticized her at a campaign rally and the crowd began chanting, “Send her back!”
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, has been one of Trump’s fiercest and most blunt critics.
Who is she? One of the most high-profile members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Waters has represented Los Angeles-area districts since 1991. She has long championed issues including housing rights and consumer protection and remains one of the most senior Black lawmakers in Washington.
How has she clashed with Trump? Waters has called for his impeachment, and has accused him of undermining democratic institutions, citing his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“We are here against the backdrop of the January 6th insurrection, a deplorable yet predictable display of white supremacists such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, QAnon, and others, and nationalist violence incited by President Trump against the Members of this body and against democracy itself,” Waters said during a subcommittee hearing weeks after the insurrection.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Waters was one of the lawmakers who protested looming cuts at the U.S. Department of Education in early 2025 by showing up at an agency building and demanding to enter. In response, Trump said, “Maxine Waters is a lunatic. They are all lunatics. It’s so sad to see.”
In 2025, when Trump sought to revoke humanitarian parole for migrants from countries including Haiti, Waters said that he was “demonstrating the height of his racism.”
She added that he was continuing a pattern whereby he repeats “racist and disparaging comments and outright lies about immigrants, especially Haitians, in an attempt to stoke fear amongst the American people.”
Waters boycotted the 2025 address where Green was ejected, saying that Trump is “full of lies and deceit,” is aligned with Vladimir Putin and Russia, and “should be tried for treason.”
Trump attacked Waters after she urged people to confront members of his administration in public during the family-separation crisis during his first term. Trump fired back by referring to Waters as “an extraordinarily low-IQ person” and “crazy.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is another member of the Squad. She wasn’t individually named by Trump in his 2019 attacks on the Squad, but she has counter-attacked him with gusto.
Who is she? Pressley has represented Massachusetts’s 7th Congressional District — which includes much of Boston — since 2019, after she unseated a longtime incumbent in a surprise primary victory. Prior to joining Congress, Pressley served on the Boston City Council, where she gained a reputation as an advocate for criminal justice reform, housing access, and other issues.
How has she clashed with Trump? Pressley has often sparred with Trump over his use of inflammatory rhetoric against Black migrants and people of color. She has also publicly opposed Medicaid cuts tied to proposals from the president and his allies.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Pressley called Trump’s claims during his 2024 campaign that Haitians were eating cats and dogs a “racist lie” — one that “dehumanizes and jeopardizes Haitians and Black Americans.”
She, along with Omar, was one of the lawmakers whom Trump in 2019 told to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Since returning to the White House, he has repeatedly called members of the Squad “Radical Left Lunatics.”
He said they need to take cognitives tests that would reveal what he called their “stupidity and incompetence.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has frequently clashed with Trump over her investigations into his business activities.
Who is she? James has been New York’s attorney general since 2019, after previously serving as the New York City Public Advocate and a member of the New York City Council. She is the first Black person to serve as the state’s attorney general and the first Black woman to hold statewide office in New York.
How has she clashed with Trump? James was one of the many people Trump vowed to prosecute when he returned to the White House. Her office brought a fraud case against the Trump Organization and won a nearly $500 million penalty against Trump. In 2025, a New York appeals court voided the penalty, but it upheld his liability.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Trump has called James “racist” and referred to her as “Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James,” a term similar to a racist slur. Steven Cheung, who was Trump’s spokesperson at the time, said that anyone who saw the term as a slur was “sick in the head.”
James responded by saying in a statement, “Mr. Trump’s comments were offensive. They were baseless. They were void of any facts and or any evidence. What they were, were comments that unfortunately fomented violence, comments that I would describe as race-baiting, and comments unfortunately that appeals to the bottom of our humanity.”
A federal grand jury in 2025 indicted her on charges of bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution, after the Trump administration replaced a U.S. attorney who declined to charge her with one who did. James pleaded not guilty, calling the case politically motivated. A judge dismissed the indictment; subsequent grand jurors refused to indict her.
Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook
Though best known for her work on financial regulation, Lisa Cook, an economist and a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, has become a target of Trump and his allies.
Who is she? Cook has been a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors — the rate-setting body for the central banking system of the U.S. — since 2022. She is the first Black woman to hold the position.
How has she clashed with Trump? For months, Trump has sought to remove Cook from her position, amid his broader efforts to overhaul the makeup of the board and remove independent governors who aren’t aligned with his monetary policy goals.
He announced in 2025 that he was firing her, but a lower court has blocked her removal and the U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating her fate. Trump’s lawyers claim that Cook misrepresented her properties on documents to obtain lower mortgage rates. She has denied these allegations.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Cook has said that she has “no intention of being bullied to step down.” The Supreme Court in January heard oral arguments in Trump v. Cook. The justices will determine whether the high court should leave a lower-court ruling in place, allowing Cook to keep her job, or pause that ruling, permitting Trump to fire her.
The case could determine whether presidents can remove members of the board.
District Attorney for Fulton County Fani Willis
Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, has been a frequent target of Trump’s attacks since she began overseeing investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.
Who is she? Willis, a Democrat, has been the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, since 2021.
How has she clashed with Trump? Willis led the investigation of the 2020 presidential contest in Georgia. In 2023, she secured indictments against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators on charges alleging that they conspired to overturn the state’s election results.
A year later, the case unraveled when a Georgia appeals court dismissed her from the case over the appearance of impropriety springing from her romantic relationship with an outside prosecutor she hired.
Since then, she has faced additional legal challenges, including a judge’s order requiring her office to pay more than $54,000 in attorneys’ fees for violating an open-records law and investigations by state lawmakers into her handling of the prosecution.
What barbs and blows have they traded? Trump has frequently attacked Willis, accusing her of racism, calling her “Phoney Fani,” and claiming that she has “allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world.”
Willis has defended her prosecution of Trump, pushing back against political attacks against her at an International Women’s Day address at the Georgia State Capitol this month.
“They wanted me to look the other way on the crimes of their colleagues and their hero,” she said. “I refused, because I took an oath to hold all who break the law accountable.”
Trump and his allies used the president’s clashes with Willis to stir anger and solicit funds for his 2024 campaign. In an email that was sent out shortly after Willis indicted Trump in 2023, he blasted the case as an example of “Election Interference on behalf of the Democrats in an attempt to keep the White House under Crooked Joe’s control and JAIL his single greatest opponent of the 2024 election.”
It’s unclear how much was raised from the email.