Donald Trump is arguably the most out-of-control politician in American history. Yet he isn’t the first to threaten the lives of an entire civilization. He is, however, the first to announce a time and date. April 7, 2026, at 8 pm Eastern time.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” — Donald Trump

American political leaders, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, also made troubling remarks.

Andrew Jackson described Native resistance as something that would lead to their “utter annihilation.”

Theodore Roosevelt is documented as saying that the extermination of Native Americans was “as ultimately beneficial as it was inevitable.”

California’s first governors and legislators openly called for the extermination of Native tribes. Governor Peter Burnett said, “A war of extermination will continue to be waged… until the Indian race becomes extinct.”

During Reconstruction and Jim Crow, state legislators openly discussed the need to “eliminate” Black political power and sometimes Black populations in certain counties. This included threats of “wiping out” Black communities during racial pogroms.

Senator Benjamin Tillman openly bragged about killing Black people to suppress their political rights, saying, “We have done our level best to prevent Blacks from voting… We shot them.” He also threatened further mass violence if Black political power grew.

Thomas Jefferson articulated a framework in which Native peoples faced only two options as he saw them: assimilation into Euro‑American society or extermination through war. Historians widely cite this as one of the clearest examples of early U.S. federal policy framing Native survival as conditional. He said the goal was to prepare them for becoming citizens of the United States, or face destruction if they resisted U.S. expansion.

Abraham Lincoln’s initial plan for enslaved people was gradual emancipation and deportation, with the only other option a war of extermination.

“It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I should be without hope of their ever being adopted. But if they were adopted, it would give time for the gradual emancipation and deportation of the negroes, so that they would not be a burden on us, nor we on them. But if we deal with the negro as with the white man, and make him politically and socially our equal, we shall have a war of extermination.” — Abraham Lincoln

During the James K. Polk administration, several U.S. generals and members of Congress advocated the annexation or destruction of Mexican society during the Mexican-American War. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun opposed annexing Mexico.

“We could never incorporate such a people," said Calhoun. "It would be the destruction of our government.” 

In 2010, another South Carolina Senator, Lindsey Graham, threatened Iran:

“We will obliterate their ability to function as a modern society,” said  Graham

Harry Truman even sounds a little bit like Trump when he made threats against Japan.

“They may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” — President Harry Truman

General Curtis LeMay oversaw the firebombing of Japanese cities and spoke in stark terms about the scale of destruction:

“We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night than went up in vapor at Hiroshima,” said General LeMay

He also said the goal was to “destroy Japan’s ability to wage war by burning down every city.”

In the 1942–1945 congressional debates, there were calls to “wipe Japan off the map.”

General LeMay also threatened that the United States could “bomb China back into the Stone Age. That sounds similar to a recent threat of Trump’s against Iran.

“We are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages,”  said Trump

For the record, the United States has been to war multiple times against Britain, France, and Germany, without once threatening to wipe their countries and peoples off the map. I’m trying not to draw any conclusions about who America deems worthy of elimination and who is not. I think the simplest answer is probably correct. But who am I to say?