School in Minn. faces threats after Trump posts clip of Somali kindergartners [View all]

Source: The Washington Post

School in Minn. faces threats after Trump posts clip of Somali kindergartners

The president’s post clearly showed the students’ faces. Replies filled with anti-Muslim invectives, including one user who labeled the children “future terrorists.”

July 10, 2026 at 3:40 p.m. EDT Today at 3:40 p.m. EDT


The young children’s faces were clearly visible in the video President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. (Tim Post/AP)

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/cleve-r-wootson-jr/

Hateful emails and phone calls targeted a Minnesota school serving Somali families after President Donald Trump shared a video of its kindergartners on Truth Social this week, an episode that many Somali Americans see as an escalation of a sustained campaign of political and rhetorical attacks during Trump’s second term, community leaders said.

On Wednesday, Trump reposted a video from a kindergarten graduation ceremony at Gateway STEM Academy, a K-8 charter school in St. Paul. In the clip, children wearing blue graduation gowns, including girls wearing hijabs beneath their mortarboards, sing in Somali as they celebrate the end of the school year. … Trump amplified another user’s caption: “Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”

The faces of the young children were clearly visible in the video shared with Trump’s 12.9 million followers. Members of the Somali community said that exposure could open the door to attacks on some of the community’s most vulnerable members. The replies to Trump’s post quickly filled with anti-Muslim invectives, including one user who called the children “future terrorists.”

For many Minnesotans of Somali descent, the post was the latest salvo in a months-long campaign in which Trump has repeatedly singled them out while his administration has mounted an aggressive immigration and law enforcement operation in the Twin Cities. … “The first term of Donald Trump was a cakewalk compared to this,” said Suleiman Adan, Deputy Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter. “In the first term, you saw attacks on equality, belonging and justice. In the second term, it’s an attack on basic human dignity. Right now, the crosshairs are on the Somali community.”

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By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
Cleve R. Wootson Jr. is a White House reporter for The Washington Post.follow on X@CleveWootson
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/cleve-r-wootson-jr/

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/07/10/somali-school-minn-faces-threats-after-trump-posts-clip-kindergartners/