What exact quotes has Donald Trump made referring to Somali communities and on what dates?
Executive summary
This dossier compiles the principal, on-the-record quotations attributed to former President Donald Trump about Somali communities, with the dates and news sources that reported them: a string of December 2025 remarks in which he attacked Somali immigrants, subsequent administration actions and rhetoric in January 2026, and a Davos speech in January 2026 that broadened the attack to “mass-importing foreign cultures” while explicitly naming Somalia [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. December 2, 2025 — Cabinet meeting: “I don’t want them in our country… With Somalia, which is barely a country…”
Reporting from the BBC summarized remarks Trump made at the end of a televised Cabinet meeting in early December 2025 in which he said, “I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, OK… Somebody will say, 'Oh, that's not politically correct.' I don't care. I don't want them in our country,” and added that “With Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no, they have no anything” [1].
2. December 2–3, 2025 (as reported) — Repeated slurs: “garbage,” “come from hell,” “contribute nothing”
Multiple outlets recorded a rapid-fire series of demeaning phrases Trump used about Somali immigrants during the same period; Fortune reported he said Somali immigrants are “garbage,” that they “come from hell,” “contribute nothing,” “do nothing but bitch,” and “their country stinks,” and also called Rep. Ilhan Omar “garbage” in the same volley [2]; Reuters and other outlets documented the broader context of those attacks and the alarm they raised in Somali-American communities [5].
3. December 2025 — Broad targeting and federal enforcement framing: “have caused a lot of trouble” / threats to revoke protections
PBS summarized Trump’s repeated claims that Somalis “have caused a lot of trouble,” noting his public focus on Minnesota and remarks tied to an announced enforcement operation that alarmed local officials [6]. News coverage from late 2025 also recorded administration moves and statements signaling tighter enforcement against Somali nationals and scrutiny of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis [3].
4. January 13, 2026 — Policy action and direct exhortation: “the Somalians should be out of here”
When the administration announced an end to Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals and resulting departure deadlines, reporting attributed a blunt directive to the president: “the Somalians should be out of here,” a phrase cited by NBC in coverage of the policy step and statements from the administration [3].
5. January 21, 2026 — Davos: “The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the west cannot mass-import foreign cultures… I mean, we’re taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed — it’s not a nation.”
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump broadened his rhetorical attack into a civilizational frame, saying “The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the west cannot mass‑import foreign cultures which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own. I mean, we’re taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed – it’s not a nation,” language reported by The Guardian and examined by The Washington Post [4] [7].
6. “Denaturalize… in a heartbeat” — Threat to strip citizenship (source without exact date attribution)
Newsweek reported Trump saying he would denaturalize some U.S. citizens “in a heartbeat,” specifically referencing Somali‑Americans in the context of a New York Times interview; the Newsweek summary attributes the quote to that interview but does not provide an exact publication date in its snippet [8]. The source documents the phrase but does not independently timestamp it for this compilation.
Context, competing narratives and source agendas
Mainstream outlets (BBC, Reuters, The Washington Post, The New York Times via coverage) reported quotes closely and tied them to concrete policy moves and community reactions, while right‑leaning outlets such as Fox published sympathetic commentary [9] [5]. Some outlets emphasize national‑security or law‑enforcement rationales; others emphasize dehumanizing or racist language and community harm [5] [6]. The sourcing here relies on contemporaneous news reports rather than primary audio/video transcripts; where outlets paraphrase or quote, those verbatim strings are cited to the publications that published them [1] [2] [4]. If an exact time‑stamped video or White House transcript for a particular line is needed, the reporting cited should be checked against primary recordings or official transcripts, which these articles summarize but do not always reproduce in full [1] [4] [2].