Trump Decries Communism in Fiery Tirade, Invokes McCarthy Era Rhetoric

President Donald Trump decried communism in a fiery, 400-word tirade, invoking rhetoric reminiscent of the McCarthy era.

In a Truth Social post Friday afternoon, the Republican president lumped together socialists and communists, and characterized them as “animals” who, he claimed, violently oppose religion, casting them as the most significant threat the United States has ever faced.

The outburst appeared to be in response to this week’s primary elections, during which a string of progressives emerged victorious in New York City, including three House candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — two of whom identify as democratic socialists.

None have described themselves as communists, and there are no self-identified communists currently serving in Congress.

“Communism is very easy to sell,” the 80-year-old president wrote. “I’d be the Greatest Communist in History. I’d give free rent, free houses, free food, everything is free. Unfortunately, after two or three years, the Country where this is taking place would fail. It always does, and then you’ll start living in squalor.”

Trump argued that communist governance would reduce the U.S. to a “Third World” nation prone to bouts of political violence. “These are not social Dumocrats, these are hard core, godless Communists,” he added.

The New York congressional primaries this week produced wins for two self-described democratic socialists, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier. Brad Lander, another Mamdani-backed candidate, also won his race, though he left the Democratic Socialists of America in 2023. They have backed measures such as rent control, enhanced labor protections and broader safeguards for immigrants. All three have called for the U.S. to distance itself with Israel.

The president also faulted Democratic leaders for what he characterized as a failure to confront the party’s extreme flank.

“In many ways, they’re allowing them to go their own way,” the president wrote. “They’re afraid they will lose their Election, they’re afraid of conflict. They’re not smart enough or tough enough to fight this plague.”

After the elections this week, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sought to minimize intra-party divisions. During a CNBC interview, when he was asked about chants from democratic socialists calling for his removal from leadership, he responded, “Donald Trump is the president of the United States right now. Are you kidding me?”

Elsewhere in his lengthy post, the GOP president asserted that communists are hell-bent on violently tearing down religion, particularly Christianity.

“All Communist Countries attack Religions violently,” he wrote, referencing recent U.S. strikes on Islamic terrorists groups in Nigeria, which Trump said “largely ended the slaughter of their Great Christian population.”

He then cast himself as the savior of Christendom.

“I am saving Christians throughout the World, even though we are not in those various Countries, by hitting these Terrorists violently and hard,” he wrote. “They will close your Churches, they will kill your people. This is what they’re about. This is the Greatest Threat to our Country since its Founding 250 years ago!”

The president’s explosive comments, echoed in his afternoon remarks to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, recalled the rhetoric of the McCarthy era, a period in the 1940s and 1950s defined by fierce anti-communist suspicion and political repression.

Named for then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the era brought widespread blacklisting, job losses and ruined reputations as accusations of disloyalty and subversion spread nationwide. The House Un-American Activities Committee played a major role in investigating alleged communists and sparking fear of retaliation from Washington, D.C. to Hollywood.

"Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity,” McCarthy said in 1950.

The Trump administration has at times drawn on tactics reminiscent of that era, often called the Red Scare, in its efforts to curb immigration.

Last year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began screening for what it described as “anti-American activity” when determining whether immigrants could legally live and work in the United States. The policy relied on a 60-year-old immigration law that bars alleged communists or those who support “totalitarian” regimes from entering the country.

Some Republicans have also urged Trump to revoke the citizenship of Mamdani, a democratic socialist.

In April, Texas Rep. Chip Roy proposed a bill that could allow the government to strip citizenship from individuals who “advocate” for socialism or are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America — a category that would include the New York City mayor.