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What did Trump say? Explaining the former president's favorite talking points
Former President Donald Trump has long made headlines with controversial comments about everything from immigration to trade, but translating those talking points isn’t always easy.
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Former President Donald Trump has long made headlines with controversial comments about everything from immigration to trade, but translating those talking points isn’t always easy.
Jackie Lay/NPR
Former President Donald Trump has a history of using provocative language to draw headlines, stir up support and attack enemies.
His words, at times, have been his greatest weapons but also his biggest vulnerability.
In recent weeks, he has described Nov. 5, Election Day, as “liberation day” for “hardworking Americans” and “judgment day” for his political enemies. He has called undocumented immigrants who commit crimes “not people” and has claimed Jews who vote for Democrats hate Israel.
It’s not easy trying to make sense of what often appears to be indiscriminate attacks on migrants and political enemies, but Trump knows how to generate headlines, excite his base and provoke the left simultaneously.
He has described political correctness as a cancer that prevents honest discussion. He says that people are too easily offended and that the country doesn’t have time to worry so much about others’ feelings.
His language is also a political weapon — and a very effective one — to use against his enemies. It’s a tool that stokes his base and baits one of his favorite foils, the media.
NPR examined Trump’s campaign speeches, interviews and social media posts since he held his first rally last year in March, as well as additional relevant comments in recent years, to provide context to how his language reflects his political agenda. Here are a few of his most common talking points:
The U.S.-Mexico border
Nowhere has the former president pushed the boundaries of appropriate language more than on the issue of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border.
He has described migrants as poisoning the blood of the country and calling those who commit crimes “animals.”
This demonization of migrants is not new. It has been a pillar of his political career ever since he announced his presidential campaign in 2015 and called Mexican immigrants rapists, bringing drugs and crime, while also saying that some are “good people.”
The border has now become one of the fieriest political issues ahead of the November elections as both sides, Democrats and Republicans, have been pointing fingers at the other to cast blame for a myriad of problems.
It’s a clear vulnerability for President Biden and the Democrats.
Biden has struggled with historic numbers of people coming across the border. It’s not just Republicans who are concerned. An increasing number of Democratic mayors and governors have raised real concerns about the drain of state and local resources in cities hundreds of miles from the border.
In a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, only 29% of respondents said they approve of how Biden is handling immigration. Republicans win the issue over Democrats by 12 percentage points when asked which party handles it better.
Critics say Trump is capitalizing on those concerns by playing up anti-immigrant sentiments.
While there is little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than U.S.-born citizens, Trump and his supporters use anecdotal stories, such as the killing of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley, to paint an ominous picture about America being overrun by violent migrants.
During speeches in Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump accused Biden of creating a “border bloodbath.”
“This is country-changing, it’s country-threatening, and it’s country-wrecking,” Trump said in Michigan. “They have wrecked our country.”
What Trump has said:
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done. They poison — mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America. Not just the three or four countries that we think about. But all over the world they’re coming into our country — from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country.” —Dec. 16, 2023, New Hampshire rally
“They’re rough people, in many cases from jails, prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums. You know, insane asylums — that’s Silence of the Lambs stuff.” —March 4, 2024, interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network
“Hannibal Lecter, anybody know Hannibal Lecter? We don’t want ’em in this country.” —March 4, 2024, interview with Right Side Broadcasting Network
A second Trump term
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, salutes at a campaign rally on March 16 in Vandalia, Ohio.
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Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, salutes at a campaign rally on March 16 in Vandalia, Ohio.
Jeff Dean/AP
Trump has been accused of using autocratic language in this campaign that echoes rhetoric of strongman leaders of the past.
Rather than rejecting those comparisons, Trump has been wielding them as a means to stoke his base, stir up media attention and, in some ways, win back former supporters.
One example is when he sparked the anger and indignation of his many critics after declaring he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1,” said Chris Stirewalt, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
He says you could see a flash in Trump’s eyes when Fox News host Sean Hannity provided Trump an opportunity to assure voters he wouldn’t abuse his power.
“He realizes he’s got a live one on the line, right?” explained Stirewalt, who is also the political editor for NewsNation. “He has the moment where he knows that the person who he’s talking to wants him to say the right thing. And he knows that the advantage comes in saying the wrong thing.”
Trump responded “only on Day 1,” so that he could close the border and start drilling.
“After that, I’m not a dictator, OK?” Trump quipped to Hannity as the crowd in Iowa applauded.
Those fiery remarks set off a chain reaction of events and coverage. The media dissected the language, often repeating the dictator-for-a-day comments, and Trump’s supporters came out in mass, largely on conservative outlets, attacking the media for, they argued, taking the comments out of context.
Stirewalt says Trump also triggered what he called “the anti-anti-Trump immune response,” which means Trump reengaged former supporters, who may have felt he went too far on Jan. 6, 2021, and/or objected to his authoritarian tendencies, to come to his defense.
“What you get is the volleying back and forth between platoons on the left and the right,” Stirewalt said. “Some of it’s sincere — some of it’s rage, content for clicks and attention. And by the time you’re done, you have strength. Trump has managed to both inflame and distract his opponents, but also to further consolidate Republican support.”
What Trump has said:
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” —Sept. 22, 2023, Truth Social, referring to Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
“Your victory will be our ultimate vindication, your liberty will be our ultimate reward, and the unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge.” —Feb. 24, 2024, Trump’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference
“We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys if I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country. That’ll be the least of it.” —March 16, 2024, Dayton, Ohio
Reshaping the federal government
During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump described himself as a “proud political dissident” and promised “judgment day” for political opponents.
He has vowed to “root out” political opponents whom he has described as “vermin,” echoing the language of authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s.
“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Trump said during a Veterans Day rally in New Hampshire.
The former president faces four different criminal trials related to allegations of interference in the 2020 election, fraud stemming from a hush money payment to an adult film star and mishandling of classified documents.
He has repeatedly claimed the prosecutions are a political witch hunt, and he has cast himself as a martyr who is being targeted by Democrats.
George Lakoff, a professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, says Trump often uses salesman tricks to frame a debate on his own terms. He knows how to use repetition to strengthen association.
He repeats phrases over and over on the campaign trail and on social media, such as fake news or that he’s going to obliterate “the deep state.” Those descriptions, right or wrong, are then repeated by others, such as the media in its coverage. They’re repeated again as opponents attack him over the use of such words.
“There is a neural reason for this,” Lakoff said. “The main thing is, if it’s in your brain and it’s activating the neural system, whatever is activating your neural system, then your brain makes it stronger.”
Trump has sought to employ the prosecutions against him to justify his own calls to overhaul the “deep state,” including those longtime federal lawyers who make up the Justice Department, as well as other federal agencies that he argues are politically biased against him.
He and his allies have begun to draft plans to overhaul the Justice Department as well as expand his presidential powers by ending protections for tens of thousands of federal employees so that they can be replaced with partisan loyalists.
What Trump has said:
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” —Nov. 11, 2023, New Hampshire
“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.” —Nov. 11, 2023, New Hampshire
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” —March 25, 2023, Waco, Texas
“Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state.” —March 25, 2023, Waco, Texas
Foreign policy
During a winter campaign rally, Trump said he told a NATO leader that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that were “delinquent” and had not paid bills they “owed” the NATO alliance.
His remarks set off a firestorm domestically and internationally, as Congress remains locked in a stalemate over whether to provide Ukraine with additional military assistance so that it can defend itself from the invasion by Russia.
As president, Trump sought to largely pull the United States out of foreign conflicts. But that hasn’t stopped him from making bold claims about the current armed conflicts raging in Europe and the Middle East.
He has repeatedly insisted that those conflicts are related to Biden’s election.
“Look what happened to our country,” Trump said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “You have wars that never would have taken place. Russia would have never attacked Ukraine. Israel would have never been attacked. You wouldn’t have had inflation.”
If elected in November, Trump has vowed that both conflicts would be resolved fast. He has said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours but has provided no details.
“There’s a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don’t want to tell you what it is because then I can’t use that negotiation — it’ll never work,” Trump told Fox’s Hannity last year. “But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them.”
Stirewalt says the secret to Trump talking about foreign policy is making it sound so easy and simple — even the most incredibly complex problems of the day — and people believe him.
“The authoritarian tendency in politics, not just in the United States but anywhere, is to say that there is a simple and easy answer,” Stirewalt said. “But the bad people will not let you obtain it because they’re weak — or they’re corrupt.”
Meanwhile, Trump has pressured lawmakers on Capitol Hill to oppose billions of dollars in additional aid for Ukraine. He has also seemed to go out of his way to avoid criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s approach to the war in Gaza has been a little more nuanced.
Then-President Donald Trump talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a ceremony in 2017 in Jerusalem.
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Then-President Donald Trump talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a ceremony in 2017 in Jerusalem.
Evan Vucci/AP
While they worked closely together during his administration, Trump was angry when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Biden after winning the 2020 presidential election.
He at first criticized Netanyahu for being unprepared for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people, and he complimented the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah when it stepped up attacks against Israel.
While he has since pledged strong support for Israel, Trump has also called on Netanyahu to end the war and has warned that Israel was losing the PR war.
“What I said very plainly is get it over with, and let’s get back to peace and stop killing people,” Trump told The Hugh Hewitt Show. “And that’s a very simple statement. Get it over with. They’ve got to finish what they finish. They have to get it done. Get it over with, and get it over with fast, because we have to, you have to get back to normalcy and peace.”
What Trump has said:
Time magazine: You think you could work better with [Israeli politician] Benny Gantz than [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu in a second term?
Trump: I think Benny Gantz is good, but I’m not prepared to say that. I haven’t spoken to him about it. But you have some very good people that I’ve gotten to know in Israel that could do a good job.
Time: Do you think —
Trump: And I will say this: Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7.
—Interview with Time magazine, published April 30, 2024
“You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.” —Feb. 10, 2024, rally in Conway, South Carolina
“You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart.” —Oct. 11, 2023, speech in West Palm Beach, Florida
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves.” —interview with former Trump administration senior adviser Sebastian Gorka on March 18, 2023
Abortion
Anti-abortion activists march outside the U.S. Supreme Court during the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2022.
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Anti-abortion activists march outside the U.S. Supreme Court during the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, 2022.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
Trump’s abortion stances are all about politics. He has repeatedly changed his positions over the years — in 2016, he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews during a town hall that if abortion were outlawed, “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions. He later retracted that statement.
As president, he supported a 20-week federal abortion ban, pushing the Senate to pass it. He also repeatedly took credit for the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. But by the time of the 2024 presidential campaign — when Roe was overturned, meaning a federal ban would be possible — his position on a federal ban was unclear.
Notably, he went the entire Republican primary without clarifying his stance on abortion, instead saying he would bring together both sides — abortion-rights supporters and abortion-rights opponents — and negotiate a compromise policy.
When he has spoken about abortion policy during this year’s campaign, he has often stressed one point in particular: that he wants to win.
He said exactly that again when he made an abortion policy announcement on April 8. In that announcement, he said that he wants states to make their own policies and that he supports exceptions to protect a mother’s life, as well as for pregnancies caused by incest or rape. He later added, “But we must win. We have to win.”
Trump is attempting to walk a careful line on abortion. On the one hand, he wants to maintain the favor of the abortion-rights opponents who have long been the Republican base. But on the other hand, he understands that most Americans are not abortion hard-liners and that tight restrictions have proved unpopular in several statewide elections.
In addition, he has not taken a position on sweeping abortion restrictions proposed in Project 2025 — a road map for a conservative presidency written by a coalition of right-wing groups. Those restrictions include curtailing access to abortion pills, as well as using the Comstock Act — a 19th-century law intended to stop indecency — to prohibit the mailing of any goods used in abortions.
What Trump has said:
Time magazine: Are you comfortable if states decide to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned?
Trump: Are you talking about number of weeks?
Time: Yeah. Let’s say there’s a 15-week ban —
Trump: Again, that’s going to be — I don’t have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.
—Interview with Time magazine, published April 30, 2024
“The states will determine [their abortion policies] by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state. Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others. … Always go by your heart. But we must win. We have to win.” —April 8, 2024, Truth Social
“The number of weeks, now, people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that, and it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really, even hard-liners, are agreeing, seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. But I’ll make that announcement at the appropriate time.” —Sid & Friends in the Morning, WABC, March 19, 2024
Trump: People are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.
Kristen Welker: Would you sign that?
Trump: I would sit down with both sides and negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t.
Trump: Both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you’ll have an issue that we can put behind us at the federal level. It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t frankly care.
—Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 16, 2023
“I support the three exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. And I think it’s very hard politically if you don’t support, but you have to go with your heart. You have to go with what you believe, and you have to rely on your heart for that.” —speech to the Concerned Women for America, Sept. 15, 2023
“After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone.” —May 17, 2023, Truth Social
“It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the MidTerms. … It was the ‘abortion issue,’ poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother, that lost large numbers of Voters.” —Jan. 1, 2023, Truth Social
“I call upon the Senate to pass this important law and send it to my desk for signing,” referring to the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would have banned abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of gestation. —Jan. 19, 2018, March for Life
“The answer is, there has to be some form of punishment.” —March 30, 2016, MSNBC town hall
What Trump hasn’t said:
Trump refused to answer whether a fetus has constitutional rights in that September 2023 Meet the Press interview.
In addition, Trump has not weighed in on the main abortion proposals included in Project 2025. One proposal calls on the Food and Drug Administration to roll back rules making abortion pills more available or to even rescind approval of the pills altogether. The other proposal calls for invoking the Comstock Act, an anti-indecency law, to halt the mailing or transporting of any goods used in providing abortions. That move would greatly restrict abortions, even in states where abortion is legal. NPR asked Trump’s campaign what his position is on the Comstock Act. The campaign wouldn’t answer directly.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a visit to a family farm in Leighton, Iowa, on Oct. 1, 2023.
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Former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a visit to a family farm in Leighton, Iowa, on Oct. 1, 2023.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
Trade and tariffs
Trump is unfailingly strident in how he talks about trade, proposing policies that are deeply protectionist. His communication about that protectionism is central to his political persona — he uses trade as a way to telegraph that he is business savvy, not to mention that he is tough and wants the U.S. to not get “ripped off.”
This involves suggesting tariff levels that are unheard of in modern U.S. trade policy. During this election cycle, Trump has reportedly discussed tariffs of 60% and, in one speech, of 100%.
There is also a full Trump presidential term of trade policy to observe. As president, Trump started a trade war with China. He also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, with the rationale that those tariffs were in the interest of national security because they increased U.S. self-reliance for defense supplies. The right-leaning Tax Foundation, estimates that while Trump’s tariffs did create revenue, they will also cost nearly 170,000 jobs in the long run. Their research also found that the Biden administration kept many of Trump’s tariffs in place.
In his discussions of trade throughout his political career, however, Trump has at times exhibited indifference to, or even a lack of understanding of, how trade works. For example, he has talked about trade deficits as if they are indications that a country is losing money. He also has cast bilateral trade deals as superior to multilateral deals. Most trade experts disagree with that take. Furthermore, while he casts tariffs as beneficial for Americans, tariffs also often end up raising prices for American consumers. Finally, he often talks about trade deals as policies with winners and losers, when the goal of trade deals is to allow all parties to benefit.
It is also worth noting that while Trump’s trade policy is aimed at protecting American industry, it is also deeply concerned with domestic politics — it’s a way to court votes, particularly in industrial states.
What Trump has said:
“I think when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay automatically. Let’s say a 10% tax. That money would be used to pay off debt.” —Interview on Fox Business, Aug. 18, 2023
“It is the policy of my Administration to represent the American people and their financial well-being in all negot[i]ations, particularly the American worker, and to create fair and economically beneficial trade deals that serve their interests. Additionally, in order to ensure these outcomes, it is the intention of my Administration to deal directly with individual countries on a one-on-one (or bilateral) basis in negotiating future trade deals.” —Presidential Memorandum Regarding Withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement, Jan. 23, 2017
“Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” —Twitter, March 2, 2018
“This is not merely an economic disaster, but it’s a security disaster. We want to build our ships, we want to build our planes, we want to build our military equipment with steel, with aluminum from our country. And now we’re finally taking action to correct this long-overdue problem.” —speech at White House, March 8, 2018
“Every time I see a weak politician asking to stop Trade talks or the use of Tariffs to counter unfair Tariffs, I wonder, what can they be thinking? Are we just going to continue and let our farmers and country get ripped off? Lost $817 Billion on Trade last year. No weakness!” —Twitter, July 25, 2018
Trans issues
Transgender issues weren’t a major national issue in 2016 they way they are now. Similarly, Trump in 2016 was neither as vocal about nor as stridently opposed to transgender rights. When the topic did come up in a 2016 Today show segment, he said he wanted people to use whatever bathrooms they wanted.
But as president, Trump took several actions to curb transgender rights — excluding transgender individuals from the military, allowing health care professionals to discriminate against them and allowing homeless shelters to exclude them.
And as transgender issues have become central to political culture wars — and as anti-transgender activists have increasingly focused their attention on transgender kids — Trump has become increasingly vocal about the topic as well. He refers to gender-affirming care for minors as “mutilation” and regularly says in his stump speech that transgender girls shouldn’t play girls’ sports — one of his most reliable applause lines.
Often, he wraps transgender issues in with school vaccine and mask mandates, as well as the teaching of what opponents call “critical race theory,” as a way of packaging these social issues as educational policy.
What Trump has said:
“On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the lives of our children. I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate. And as I very embarrassingly said before, I will keep men out of women’s sports.” —April 13, 2024, rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania
“On Day 1, I will revoke Joe Biden’s cruel policies on so-called gender affirming care. … I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age. … My Department of Education will inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school officials suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences, including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination.” —Jan. 31, 2023, video originally posted on Truth Social, listing an array of anti-transgender policies that Trump would pursue as president
Trump: Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they’re going through with all of the business that’s leaving and all of the strife — and that’s on both sides — you leave it the way it is. There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go. They use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic — I mean, the economic punishment that they’re taking. …
Matt Lauer: So if Caitlyn Jenner were to walk into Trump Tower and want to use the bathroom, you would be fine with her using any bathroom she chooses?
Trump: That is correct.
—April 21, 2016, NBC’s Today
“The Departments believe that, in this context, there must be due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy. In these circumstances, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have decided to withdraw and rescind the above-referenced guidance documents in order to further and more completely consider the legal issues involved.” —Feb. 22, 2017, letter from Trump administration Education and Justice department officials, referring to rescinding Obama-era rules that allowed students to use bathrooms and facilities based on their gender identity
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow … Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming … victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” —July 26, 2017, Twitter (three tweets: 1, 2, 3)
“We’re going back to the plain meaning of those terms, which is based on biological sex.” —Trump official Roger Severino of the Department of Health and Human Services, May 24, 2019, on a proposed (and later finalized) rule ending Obama-era protections for transgender people against discrimination in health care
“The proposed rule permits Shelter Providers to consider a range of factors in making such determinations, including privacy, safety, practical concerns, religious beliefs, any relevant considerations under civil rights and nondiscrimination authorities, the individual’s sex as reflected in official government documents, as well as the gender which a person identifies with.” —July 1, 2020, proposed Department of Housing and Urban Development rule allowing single-sex shelters to turn people away based on their gender identity
A man sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
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MONTGOMERY, Ala.— In 1965, Black Americans peacefully demonstrated for voting rights and were beaten by Alabama state troopers before returning two weeks later to complete their march under federal protection. Keith Odom was a toddler then.
Now 62 years old, the union man and grandfather of three retraced some of their final steps. On Saturday, he came from Aiken, South Carolina, to Atlanta, where he joined several dozen other activists on two buses to Montgomery, Alabama. A few hours later, he stepped off his bus and onto Dexter Avenue, where the original march concluded.
“The history here — being a part of it, seeing it, feeling it,” said Odom, who is Black.
His voice trailed off as he saw the Alabama Capitol and a stage that sat roughly where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded the original march.
Odom lamented that he and his fellow bus riders were not simply commemorating that seminal day in the Civil Rights Movement. Instead they came to renew the fight. The 1965 effort helped push Congress to send the Voting Rights Act to Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign, securing and expanding political power for Black and other nonwhite voters for more than a half-century.
Saturday’s “All Roads Lead to the South” rally was the first mass organizing response after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that severely diminished that landmark law. Striking down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana, the justices concluded in a 6-3 ruling that considering race when drawing political lines is in itself discriminatory. That spurred multiple states, including Alabama, to redraw U.S. House districts in ways that make it harder for Black voters, who lean overwhelmingly Democratic, to elect lawmakers of their choice.
“I’m not trying to live a life that’s going backwards,” Odom said. “I want to go forward, for my grandchildren to be able to go forward.”
Keith Odom, a forklift driver from Aiken, S.C., looks out from his bus seat as he arrives in Montgomery, Ala., for a voting rights rally Saturday, May 16, 2026.
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An old political battle is new again
The passenger rosters and the scene when riders arrived in Montgomery sounded the echoes and rhymes of past and present.
“I talked to my grandmother before I came, and she was so excited,” said Justice Washington, a Kennesaw State University student named because her mother and grandmother had faith in the American system. “My grandmother told me she did her part, and now it’s time for me to do mine.”
No one on the Atlanta buses had reached voting age when the Voting Rights Act became law. The youngest attendee was born as Democrat Barack Obama was elected the first Black president in 2008.
Kobe Chernushin is 18, white and just graduated high school in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. He is an organizer with the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition and spent the day filming Khayla Doby, a 29-year-old executive for the organization, doing standups for the group’s followers on social media.
“I believe in the power of showing up,” he said.
The buses launched from the congressional district in Georgia once represented by John Lewis, bloodied on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, when he was 25. Lewis died in 2020, but some on the buses Saturday celebrated that a proposed federal election overhaul is named for him. If some Democrats get their way, the bill would override the U.S. Supreme Court, reinvigorate the Voting Rights Act and outlaw the kind of gerrymandering competition that Republican President Donald Trump has instigated.
“I’m here because of the same forces that pulled on John Lewis when he was a student,” said Darrin Owens, 27. He has worked for former Vice President Kamala Harris and now trains Democratic candidates.
“Political activism is personal,” Owens said, explaining that he attended Saturday as a citizen, not a political professional. “Sometimes those lines are blurred, and as a Black person in America, a Black person living in a Southern state, I’m committed to action that stops what I consider to be un-American, this possibility that the person who represents me is someone who is not from my community and does not understand me or my community.”
When he arrived, Owens saw no federal authorities on Montgomery’s streets. A wounded, recovering Lewis did during the second march in 1965.
This time many of the Alabama troopers and local officers who walked the area were Black.
The buses and sandwich lunches had been arranged by Fair Fight Action, a legacy of the political network built by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, who became a national figure in her unsuccessful runs in 2018 and 2022 to become the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. No Black woman has yet achieved that feat.
Bee Nguyen, left, talks to Carole Burton, center, and Tondalaire Ashford at a voting rights rally Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
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Different generations share their stories
At different points, Montgomery has branded itself as the cradle of the Confederacy and the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
“It feels like our country is stuck in this pattern of making progress, then there’s a huge backlash, and then people have to go through the same battle again just to get to where we were,” said Phi Nguyen, the 41-year-old daughter of Vietnamese refugees. She is now a civil rights lawyer in Atlanta.
She stood across from the church where a young King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and not far from where Jefferson Davis took the oath of office in 1861 as the slavery-defending Confederate president.
Nguyen and her sister Bee, a 44-year-old who served in the Georgia General Assembly and ran for statewide office, met two other women as they walked. Carole Burton and Tondalaire Ashford are 72-year-old Montgomery residents who have been friends since they were in a segregated junior high school and then newly desegregated Sidney Lanier High School.
“I don’t call it ‘integration,’” Ashford said, pointing at her dark skin. “It was never real integration, and it’s not like we can ever just blend in.”
Burton described them as being “in the second wave” of Black students. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “And we had to support each other.”
They remember their parents not being able to vote in the era of poll taxes, literacy tests and other racist restrictions that the Voting Rights Act eventually outlawed. But they smiled as they swapped family histories with the Nguyens.
Burton said immigrants, descendants of enslaved persons and Native Americans have different but overlapping paths. “We just want to be treated like people with the same rights and opportunities the country has promised us,” she said. “They’ve never fully lived up to it.”
Aaron McGuire sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala.
Mike Stewart/AP
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Mike Stewart/AP
Conflicting legacies are at stake
To Odom, who had begun his journey Saturday in South Carolina, the current U.S. Supreme Court reinforced that history by refusing to see some race-conscious election policy as a way to ensure fair representation, not simply the “technical right to vote.”
He recalls decades of his life being represented by Strom Thurmond, a segregationist Democratic governor who became a “Dixiecrat” presidential candidate and U.S. senator — by now as a Republican — into the 21st century. Odom said he fears his state losing U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, through redistricting.
“They want to take away that legacy when we’re still living with Strom’s?” Odom said.
Odom said he is also worried that the young people who participated Saturday are not a vanguard but outliers.
“I was talking to a 20-year-old co-worker about this trip,” he said. “She told me she supported me but didn’t want to do it or work for anybody” running for office. “She wondered what any of them are going to do for her.”
Nonetheless, he said on the way home, “I’m still going to tell her what I saw and what I heard.”
One observer of the current Senate race in Louisiana noted that Sen. Bill Cassidy could lose his reelection bid.
Annie Flanagan for NPR
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Annie Flanagan for NPR
Sen. Bill Cassidy lost Saturday’s Louisiana Republican primary according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Cassidy, who served two terms in the Senate, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. That vote put him at odds with Trump and his MAGA coalition, ultimately leading Trump to push Rep. Julia Letlow to run against Cassidy.
Cassidy’s bid for a third term was viewed as a test of Trump’s grip on the party–and of what voters want from their representatives in Washington. The primary pitted Cassidy, a veteran lawmaker, former physician and chair of the powerful Senate health committee, against Letlow, a political newcomer and a millennial MAGA loyalist.
A detailed view of a hat that reads, Run Julia Run, is seen at a campaign event for Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) on May 6, 2026 in Franklinton, Louisiana.
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Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images
A former college administrator, Letlow won a special election in 2021 for the House seat her late husband, Luke, was set to assume before he died from COVID in 2020.
In Congress, Letlow sponsored a bill to collect oral histories from the pandemic and has focused on education and children. She introduced the “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which would allow parents to review classroom materials like library books and require schools to notify parents if their child requests different pronouns, locker rooms or sports teams.
She also serves on the powerful appropriations committee and has embraced Trump’s agenda.
Letlow, who came first in Saturday’s primary, will face Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming in the runoff on June 27. Cassidy came in third.
The election result is a victory for President Trump who has put Republican loyalty to the test on the ballot so far this year in Indiana state senate primaries and in Cassidy’s race.
Another major test of Trump’s influence comes in Kentucky’s primary on Tuesday when Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has found himself at odds with the president, faces a challenger endorsed by Trump.
News
Brass bands in Beijing make way for sticker shock at home as Trump returns to escalating inflation
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump returned from the spectacle of a Chinese state visit to a less than welcoming U.S. economy — with the military band and garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressure over how to fix America’s escalating inflation rate.
Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’s own tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains and effectively making workers poorer. The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.
Trump’s time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’s claims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while having to absorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry, women’s clothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democrats see the moment as a political opportunity.
“He’s returning to a dumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focused on economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people — the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”
The president’s trip to Beijing and his recent comments that indicated a tone-deafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices have suggested his focus is not on the American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’s tax cuts as helping families.
Trump described the trip as a victory, saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,” as the U.S. president has praised their relationship.
Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft — and maybe even 750 “if they do a good job” — to the Chinese. He said American farmers would be “very happy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars of soybeans.”
“We had an amazing time,” Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some “short-term pain” and would “drop like a rock” once the war ends.
Inflationary pain is not a factor in how Trump handles Iran
Trump departed from the White House for China by saying the negotiations over the Iran war depended on stopping Tehran from developing nuclear weapons. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to some that Trump cared more about challenging Iran than fighting inflation at home. Trump defended his words, telling Fox News: “That’s a perfect statement. I’d make it again.”
The White House has since stressed that Trump is focused on inflation.
Asked later about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vance said there had been a “misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman Kush Desai said the “administration remains laser-focused on delivering growth and affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.
But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports back home showed inflation rising for businesses and interest rates climbing on U.S. government debt.
His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’s stock price to fall because investors had expected a larger number. There was little concrete information offered about any trade agreements reached during the summit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports such as liquefied natural gas and beef.
“Foreign policy wins can matter politically, but only if voters feel stability and affordability in their daily lives,” said Brittany Martinez, a former Republican congressional aide who is the executive director of Principles First, a center-right advocacy group focused on democracy issues.
“Midterms are almost always a referendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from the same inflation and affordability pressures that hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added.
Democrats see Trump as vulnerable
Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’s comments before his trip as proof of his indifference to lowering costs. There is potential staying power of his remarks as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.
“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trump and congressional Republicans to lower costs – in fact, they see the opposite,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.
Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it was when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with a specific mandate to fix it.
“The inflation number last month was not great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing anything like what we saw under the Biden administration.”
Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden, a Democrat. By the time Trump took the oath of office, it was a far more modest 3%.
Trump’s inflation challenge could get harder
The data tells a different story as higher inflation is spreading into the cost of servicing the national debt.
Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10-year U.S. government debt jumped from 4.36% to 4.6%, an increase that implies higher costs for auto loans and mortgages.
“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon.
Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translating into higher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’s ability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, his administration is preparing a new set of import taxes for this summer.
Daco stressed that there have been a series of supply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.
“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.
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