House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said he would welcome a debate with President Trump in response to Mr. Trump calling him a “low IQ person.”
“If Donald Trump wants to debate me anytime, any place, in the Oval Office, publicly, on camera, I’d be happy to do it,” the New York Democrat said at his Thursday press conference. “We’ll see who’s intellectually superior in that type of contest. I’ve got no doubts as to what the outcome would be.”
The president called Mr. Jeffries a “low-IQ person” on multiple occasions in a Tuesday interview with CNBC while blasting him for complaining about the Iran war.
“I watch this low-IQ guy, Hakeem Jeffries — he’s a totally low-IQ person — and he’s always ranting and raving, ’Oh, this war is so terrible.’ They shouldn’t be saying that when we’re in the midst of a negotiation because it does hurt us somewhat. It gives the other side some hope, and I don’t want them to have hope,” Mr. Trump said.
He doubled down in a Truth Social post on his disdain for the Democratic leaders’ comments.
“Never allow the Traitor Democrats like Low IQ person Hakeem Jeffries, or Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, or the totally corrupt Fake News Media such as the phony and decaying Wall Street Journal, the Failing New York Times (Subscriptions way down!), or dying ’60 Minutes,’ to demean or criticize Operation Midnight Hammer, which totally obliterated the Nuclear Dust locations to the point where bloodthirsty Iran has been unable to get to it, or dig it out,” Mr. Trump wrote.
In response, Mr. Jeffries called him the “dumbest president ever.”
“It’s extraordinary to me that Donald Trump keeps recycling this low IQ insult; it’s from the dumbest president ever,” he said.
Mr. Jeffries accused Mr. Trump and other Republicans of failing on key issues, including the war in Iran.
“Instead of insulting people all over the world — and I’m not really worried about what he has to say about me — but he’s insulting our allies. He’s worsening the United States’ security posture in doing so,” Mr. Jeffries said. “He’s fighting with his own MAGA base. The economy is collapsing. It’s a train wreck, which is why it’s going to take Democrats to get back on track.”
