On January 20, 2026, marking the first anniversary of his second inauguration, Trump took over the White House press briefing and spoke from the podium in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Listing what he called his accomplishments, he said he had “removed his hand-picked radical left Marxist prosecutors from the Department of Justice, like deranged Jack \”Sick\“ Smith. He's a sick son of a bitch.”
He went on: “They gave me the worst of the worst and here I am. How did that happen?” He added that Smith is “a sick guy and Letitia James is sick and Alvin Bragg is sick -- they're sick people -- and others,” before mocking the pronunciation of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's first name.
Smith, the former special counsel who was appointed in 2022 to lead a criminal investigation into Trump, had testified before Congress that same month that he believed he had built a case to convict Trump “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Trump used the briefing room, the room where presidents and their press secretaries address the country on matters of national importance, to insult him and other prosecutors who had investigated or charged him.
Correction (October 14, 2026): This entry previously dated the remarks to January 15, 2026; the official transcripts show they were made on January 20, 2026, and the date has been corrected. It also said Trump called Letitia James, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis “sick people”; the transcript shows he called James and Bragg sick and “sick people,” then mocked Willis's name without using that phrase about her. The entry's statements that Smith's attack was not responsive to any ongoing proceeding and that three of the four prosecutors are Black were not supported by the cited sources and have been removed.