{"id":1032,"date":"2026-05-21T09:34:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1032"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:34:31","slug":"profanity-is-a-hallmark-of-trumps-second-term-a-post-analysis-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1032","title":{"rendered":"Profanity is a hallmark of Trump\u2019s second term, a Post analysis finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has long been notable for his public use of profanity. But his use of vulgar language<\/a>, personal insults and self-aggrandizing rhetoric has increased markedly in his second term, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump\u2019s speeches and social media posts.<\/p>

Read more Trump\u2019s allies are already lining up to apply to his $1.8 billion fund<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s use of profanity and other crude or demeaning language \u2014 including insults such as \u201clow IQ,\u201d which he routinely hurls at political opponents \u2014 has risen over time. In the first 1\u00bd years of his first presidency, about 40 percent of his speeches contained at least one vulgar term, compared with about 93 percent in his second term. And the number of vulgar or insulting social media posts has roughly tripled during his second term, compared with a similar period in his first term.<\/p>\n

The increasingly coarse rhetoric reflects what historians and presidential scholars describe as a more openly combative second term \u2014 one defined by rapid-fire executive actions, public threats against perceived enemies, and a governing style rooted in dominance and confrontation.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
President Donald Trump acknowledges supporters during a May 1 visit to The Villages, Florida. (Phelan M. Ebenhack\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Trump has openly disparaged political opponents<\/a>, threatened retribution against critics and deployed federal officers to cities led by Democrats \u2014 sometimes <\/b>with deadly consequences<\/a>. Through it all, he has used vulgar language to frame his actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in one. Open the Fuckin\u2019 Strait, you crazy bastards, or you\u2019ll be living in Hell \u2014 JUST WATCH!\u201d Trump posted<\/a> to Truth Social on April 5 \u2014 Easter Sunday \u2014 as the war in Iran and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz drove up gas prices and lowered his approval ratings.<\/p>\n

A month later, speaking before supporters in Florida, Trump directed his ire at whoever was in charge of his microphone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurn up the mic!\u201d he barked. \u201cI don\u2019t believe in paying people that do a bad job. … I\u2019m screaming my ass off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has made direct, even crude, speech a part of his personal brand, framing his bluntness as a sign of authenticity that he says more-scripted politicians lack. He has consistently said he voices what other people are afraid to say out loud.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s language \u201cmeshes with a very aggressive presidency,\u201d said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton historian who studies presidential rhetoric. Trump is easily the most publicly profane president in American history, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump does use the language to intimidate, to threaten, to attack his opponents,\u201d Zelizer said. \u201cAnd so a curse is more than just a curse. In certain respects, it can be a way to send a very chilling signal to someone who is not supportive of him or threatening him about how angry he is \u2026 because now he has a record that he\u2019s willing to go far to stop that person.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales characterized the president\u2019s speech as evidence of his authenticity.<\/p>

Read more Browns QB race under Monken remains wide open as offseason enters organized practice stage<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump doesn\u2019t care about being politically correct, he cares about Making America Great Again,\u201d Wales said. \u201cThe American people love how authentic, transparent, and effective the President is, which is why he won in a massive landslide victory on November 5, 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

The analysis paints a portrait of a president whose rhetoric has become increasingly coarse and sprawling, punctuated by angry late-night posts and public remarks that often veer into extended tangents and improvisational detours.<\/p>\n

Among the findings:<\/p>\n

Historically, presidents and presidential candidates have aspired to soaring rhetoric and avoided public use of obscenities or crude language. Modern presidents employ teams of speechwriters to lend their words discipline, precision and gravitas.<\/p>\n

Earlier presidents generally treated profanity as something to be concealed from public view, not deployed as part of a political persona. Richard M. Nixon was so embarrassed by the profanity captured on his Oval Office tapes during the Watergate scandal that transcripts replaced many of the president\u2019s four-letter words with the now-famous phrase \u201cexpletive deleted.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his 1990 memoir, Nixon acknowledged the public shock over the recordings. \u201cMost people swear at one time or another,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut since neither I nor most other Presidents had ever used profanity in public, millions were shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

As vice president, Joe Biden once remarked to President Barack Obama that the passage of the Affordable Care Act was a \u201cbig fucking deal.\u201d A few years later, as president, Biden was caught on a hot mic saying a reporter was a \u201cstupid son of a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s use of profane language may help consolidate support from his base, but it can also be a liability, Zelizer noted. After Trump\u2019s profanity-laden message to Iran, Democrats started saying the vice president and the Cabinet should use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when you sound like you\u2019re debasing the language so much, it undermines how much people respect you,\u201d Zelizer said. \u201cIt can leave voters, allies and opponents here and overseas thinking: This person is not a great leader. This person is almost desperate, because this is how they speak, and they\u2019re not so … much better than the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Methodology<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

The Washington Post analyzed Trump\u2019s social media posts and speeches in the first year and a half of both of his presidencies. Posts through May 17,<\/i> and speeches through May 11<\/i> are included in this analysis. Speech transcripts are from Factbase and include official remarks, excluding shorter appearances and press briefings. Posts were sourced from the Trump Twitter Archive and Truth Social. The Post searched for more than two dozen profane and other insulting or vulgar terms, such as \u201clow IQ,\u201d<\/i> \u201cderanged\u201d<\/i> and \u201closer,\u201d in his posts and speeches. The Post searched for such language across all of Trump\u2019s original posts to Truth Social and Twitter\/X containing text<\/i> and used the same dataset to track his use of first-person pronouns. All time data for posts reflect U.S. Eastern time. To measure derailment in speeches, The Post programmatically scored how closely related consecutive sections of each speech were in meaning. When two sections were sufficiently different \u2014 and Trump didn\u2019t return to the original topic within five minutes \u2014 it was counted as a derailment.<\/i><\/p>

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The analysis of President Trump’s speeches and social media posts shows a sharp increase in his use of vulgarities, insults and bombastic rhetoric since his first term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nProfanity is a hallmark of Trump\u2019s second term, a Post analysis finds - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=1032\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Profanity is a hallmark of Trump\u2019s second term, a Post analysis finds - 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