'Trump Is Bullying Children Now?': Internet Explodes After POTUS Reportedly Targets Kindergarteners in Hijabs

Donald Trump is facing a fresh wave of outrage in the United States after he used his Truth Social platform on Monday to share and criticise a video of Black kindergarten children wearing hijabs at a St Paul, Minnesota charter school, prompting accusations that the president is now targeting Muslim pupils.

Trump's attacks on public figures of colour. A day earlier, he had taken yet another swipe at Barack and Michelle Obama, a fixation that has become a running feature of his online presence. This time, according to critics, he widened the frame of his rhetoric to focus not on political rivals or adult opponents, but on a classroom of very young children who happened to be Black, Muslim and visibly observant.

Donald Trump and the Viral Video of Black Muslim Kindergarteners

The short clip Trump reposted originally appeared on X, shared by the account 'End Wokeness,' which frequently rails against diversity and inclusion initiatives. It shows a line of small children, many of them Black girls in hijabs, inside what has been described as an American charter school in St Paul. There is no indication in the video that the children are doing anything other than attending class, yet by amplifying the post to his own followers, Trump effectively turned them into the latest symbol in his ongoing culture war.

These are American pupils, protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom, simply wearing religious head coverings in their own school. That fact has been repeated again and again by those angered by Trump's decision. For an adult to single them out online is one thing. For a president and the current Republican standard-bearer to do so has been described by opponents as reckless and dehumanising.

Journalist and long-time Trump critic Aaron Rupar did not mince his words. 'Trump is now using his platform to attack kindergarteners because they are Muslim,' he wrote, distilling what many others felt but said in less measured language.

Reaction across social media was rapid and visceral. On Meta's Threads platform, one furious user wrote: 'I pray he is dragged repeatedly through hellfire by his neck.' Another poster contrasted the outrage at hijabs with the lack of equivalent scrutiny of far-right groups: 'Trump is mad at kindergartners for wearing hijab's and I'm mad at the 'proud boys' for wearing masks. One group does it for hate; the other are children.'

Several users homed in on what they saw as the blatant double standard in American politics around religion in schools. 'Trump is bullying children now? Because they have hijabs on meanwhile TX said you have to learn the Bible... the hypocrisy,' one comment read, referring to efforts in Texas to mandate Christian instruction.

A different kind of concern came from users focused less on ideology and more on safety. One person was 'outraged beyond words' that the president had posted identifiable images of small children and their school to his widely followed account. 'If I was one of those parents I'd be apoplectic,' they added.

There has been no indication from Trump's camp that he intends to take the post down or acknowledge the backlash. Nothing has been confirmed yet regarding any formal complaint from the school or the families involved, so for now the reaction lives almost entirely online and in political commentary but the anger is real enough.

Donald Trump, White Nationalists and a Cabinet Under Scrutiny

The uproar over Trump's treatment of the St Paul pupils landed at the same time as fresh questions about the attitudes within his wider circle. On Sunday, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, one day after the US marked the 250th anniversary of its independence and was pressed about a white nationalist march through Washington, DC.

Dozens of masked men carrying Confederate flags paraded through residential neighbourhoods under the banner of a group calling itself Patriot Front. Images of the march were widely shared, but one photograph in particular, showing a Black woman on the subway surrounded by members of the group, captured the unease many residents felt. The visual suggestion was clear enough: a lone woman of colour engulfed by men aligned with white nationalist ideology.

CNN host Dana Bash repeatedly asked Burgum whether he condemned Patriot Front and their beliefs. Rather than give a direct answer, Burgum skirted around the question, invoking free-speech protections and declining to state outright that the group's white nationalism was unacceptable.

Viewers did not miss the evasion. 'Yes...the correct answer was...Yes,' one X user, RILEY, wrote afterwards. 'No one said they shouldn't have the right to say what they want and right to free speech... she asked do you condemn the GROUP and their speech and white nationalist ideology. It was kind of a no brainer...but the non answer was an answer.'

Others were distracted and irritated by Burgum's choice of words. One commenter pointed out that he repeatedly used 'irreprehensible' when he seemed to be aiming for 'reprehensible.' 'Reprehensible means extremely bad or without morals, what he said means "without fault or blame!" Stop trying to use big words Doug!' they wrote, treating the slip as emblematic of a broader clumsiness.

Perhaps the bluntest summary came from another X user responding to the interview and, by extension, to the pattern they see around Trump and his allies. 'He is weak. Very weak. This shows how and why Trump/MAGA never steps up when true racism steps to the forefront. Weak.'

The thread linking a president attacking Muslim schoolchildren online and an interior secretary refusing to clearly condemn a white nationalist march is not subtle. It is, they argue, the through-line of a political movement that treats bigotry as a culture-war talking point rather than a line that must not be crossed.