Trump ramps up attacks on Democrats as ‘godless Communists’ ahead of November’s midterms

By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Friday seized on the electoral success of several democratic socialist candidates to ramp up his attacks on the Democratic Party, claiming it was being taken over by “godless Communists” who pose an existential threat to the nation.

The heated rhetoric marked the latest bid by Trump to portray Democrats as political extremists ahead of November’s midterms — even though portrayals of even the party’s most liberal candidates as “communists” are far from reality.

“These are hard core, godless Communists,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post earlier on Friday, an accusation he repeated during remarks to a gathering of social conservatives. “This is the Greatest Threat to our Country since its Founding 250 years ago!”

The president’s stepped up bid to label Democrats as communists follows New York’s Democratic primary earlier this week, which saw voters in three deep blue districts select self-identified democratic socialists as their candidates for Congress.

Those primary wins came on the heels of New York’s election of another democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, for mayor. Democrats could send still more to Congress by the time November’s races are set, with hopefuls on the ballot in several states across the country.

It’s a movement that appears set to push the Democratic Party further to the left. Yet the tenets of socialism — much less democratic socialism — are still far removed from the communist ideology that Trump has loudly, and inaccurately, portrayed as a rising threat.

The democratic socialists rising within the Democratic Party are advocating for major policy changes within the US’ already established capitalist system, chiefly through a significant bolstering of the social safety net. That includes directing greater public funding toward guaranteeing health care for all citizens, providing far more in housing assistance and relying on the government to a much greater degree to lift peoples’ quality of life.

The main tradeoff for those benefits is higher taxes, especially on the wealthy, which democratic socialists contend is necessary to ensure a more balanced and equal society.

That’s a view that has raised the ire of Republicans, and even factions within the Democratic Party, who are opposed to such change — or believe that it’s more prudent to make change incrementally.

Yet even that aggressive platform is far from what would typically be defined as communism, which envisions a government-less, class-less society where resources are distributed evenly no matter how hard or well any individuals work. Implementing such an ideology would first require effectively dismantling capitalism — a step that no leading Democrats see as preferable or feasible.

Those clear differences between democratic socialism and communism aren’t likely to deter Trump, whose party faces an uphill battle in retaining full control of Congress. On Friday, speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Policy Conference, he warned that Democrats’ “communist” policies would lead to societal collapse — and possibly even violence.

“I’m sorry to say, but assassination is a big deal for them,” he said, speaking at the same Washington, DC, hotel where earlier this year a gunman who authorities say was attempting to kill him was subdued. “They’re animals in many cases.”

The president also cast the struggle against communism in religious terms, referencing violence against Christians in Nigeria and warning of dire consequences domestically.

“They will close your churches in this country. They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people, and that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion,” he said.

It was a sharp contrast compared to his evaluation just days earlier of the leader of an actual communist country: China’s Xi Jinping.

“He’s a very smart man,” Trump told Axios in an interview published last week. “You don’t get to those levels where you are running a country, even if it was a small country, you have something special.”

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