What began as a routine holiday greeting quickly spiraled into controversy.
On Thanksgiving evening, President Donald Trump posted a message online that initially carried the expected warmth and civility of seasonal cheer. But within minutes, the tone shifted dramatically.
What was meant to be a festive greeting became a platform for pointed attacks, inflammatory rhetoric, and sweeping claims about immigration that left both critics and supporters reeling. Observers questioned the timing,
coming just hours before Americans would gather with family, wondering whether it was a calculated effort to dominate the news cycle under the guise of a holiday message.
Trump’s post, shared late Thursday night, opened with the familiar cadence of a holiday note. Yet it quickly devolved into an extended tirade touching on crime, immigration, and political opponents. The president tied his proposed migration freeze to a recent tragic shooting in Washington, D.C., in which Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal was implicated.
Trump framed lenient immigration policies as the root cause of societal unrest, writing that American citizens and patriots had “been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up.”
The president singled out Somali immigrants in Minnesota, a state with a long-established Somali-American community. Earlier in the day, he told reporters, “Somalians have caused a lot of trouble,” adding, “We’re not taking their people anymore.
We’re getting a lot of their people out because they’re nothing but trouble.” He further accused Minnesota of being a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and claimed Somali refugees were “completely taking over” the state.
In one of the most provocative sections of his post, Trump targeted Governor Tim Walz with an offensive slur: “The seriously r******d Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both.” Walz responded on social media tersely with “Release the MRI results,” referencing Trump’s own health disclosures, without elaborating further.
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born congresswoman, was also singled out. Trump labeled her “the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country” and mocked her traditional hijab, describing her as “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab.” He disparaged Somalia as a “decadent, backward, and crime-ridden nation” and accused Omar of continually complaining about America.
Trump directly linked Omar’s advocacy and recent immigration policies to the D.C. shooting suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, despite federal vetting procedures. When a reporter pointed out that Lakanwal had been approved for asylum in April 2025, Trump dismissed the question and called Omar “stupid,” declining to clarify whether the approval had occurred under his administration.
The post then shifted to sweeping policy claims. Trump alleged that many immigrants arrive from “failed nations or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” and benefit from “massive” welfare programs. He renewed his call to “permanently pause migration” from all “Third World countries” to allow U.S. systems to recover.
He further asserted that his administration would deport any foreign national deemed a security threat, a public burden, or “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” concluding that “only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.”
Earlier that day, Trump had also ordered a review of all green card holders from what he described as “countries of concern.” Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow characterized the probe as a “full-scale investigation,” emphasizing that American safety was “non-negotiable.”
The message ended with a holiday sign-off that blended festivity with warning: “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”
Conclusion
Trump’s Thanksgiving post demonstrates his continued reliance on provocative, polarizing language and targeted attacks against political figures and immigrant communities.
While superficially framed as a holiday greeting, the post quickly evolved into a platform for policy declarations, personal insults, and rhetorical escalation. The statements highlight the intersection of social media, political communication, and national discourse, raising questions about the limits of public messaging by current and former leaders and the influence such communications have on public perception and social cohesion. By combining festive imagery with incendiary claims, the post ensured immediate attention — and immediate controversy — illustrating how modern political rhetoric can blur the line between holiday messaging and political mobilization.