“We’ve left infertility drugs (prices) to make more Trump babies, I’m hoping by the midterms.” That odd comment was recently made by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet was done by Oz.
Four years into the first Trump administration and nearly a year into the second, many of us have become desensitized to these kinds of comments — but not black women. We know the quiet part is spoken aloud when we hear it.
Dr. Oz’s comments may have been written as a joke, but there’s nothing funny about what his words actually mean. This administration will stop at nothing to ensure white political supremacy in this country.
Oz’s comment wasn’t gossip, it was a strategy reveal
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House on December 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
By eliminating federal social safety nets, slashing Medicaid, increasing barriers to maternal health care and more, this administration is creating a perfect storm to control who can and cannot have children.
“Trump babies” born before the midterm elections in 2026 won’t vote until 2044, but decades after hearing phrases like “welfare queens,” we let out a dog whistle when we hear them. To understand this moment, it helps to look across generations.
Sixty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act. One cannot underestimate the impact of that generation’s monumental moment on what is happening today.
This seminal 1965 pair of laws “democratized the idea of who could be an American” and who could vote, as recently reported by The New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb.
opinion: Americans are moving away from wanting children. I am worried about my generation.
Twenty years from now, the white population in America will be less than 50%. Non-white births already outnumber white Americans, and non-white children under 15 already outnumber white children.
By 2050, the white population will be just another subgroup in an increasingly diverse nation. A demographic shift toward a non-white majority is inevitable.
That reality must permeate a more inclusive democracy. Instead, white supremacists see it as an existential threat.
As the numbers dwindle, the people cling to power
The Maga movement wants to preserve power at any cost. Its four-part plan to stem this demographic tsunami includes voter suppression, undermining reproductive justice, drastically reducing the number of non-white children who grow up to be voters through targeted deportations, and encouraging American births in “traditional families.”
The first is the strategic disenfranchisement of black and Latino voters by repealing the Voting Rights Act, removing us from the voter rolls, and stripping congressional seats representing black and brown constituencies.
The second is to deprive low-income parents of financial and reproductive autonomy to choose their family size. With an estimated $320,000 cost to raise an American child born in 2015 to age 18, and with families of color facing disproportionate levels of poverty, cutting safety net programs will make it harder for people in our communities to have children.
In fact, a recent state poll from In Our Own Voice found that economic insecurity is the number one concern for black adults about why they’re not raising their families. This will only increase as federal budget cuts and inflation put basic needs such as child care, shelter and nutrition increasingly out of reach.
An Indiana hospital forced an Illinois family to leave the hospital in the early hours of November 16, 2025, minutes before mother Mercedes Wells gave birth to her daughter, Elena.
At the same time, the poor quality of care in our health system, highlighted by the recent experiences of two black women, Carrie Jones of Texas and Mercedes Wells of Indiana, who were both fired while in active labor, shows how dangerous and unequal the path to parenthood has become.
Cutting Medicaid for millions also ignores a quarter of black and Latina women, more than half of black girls and two-thirds of black births.
Third, we are witnessing our government’s brutal kidnapping and deportation of black and brown immigrants of reproductive age and their children. Attacking birthright citizenship, limiting international student visas, and accepting only white Africans as refugees, these nativist policies set the stage for narrowing the pathways for America’s non-white population.
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And fourth, white families should have more children. While the administration’s initial ideas — a $1,000 “baby bonus” and medals for mothers of six — may seem harmless, they point to the rise of America’s pronatalism movement.
With vague echoes of eugenics, its white, religious, conservative champions are pushing for more births for married, heterosexual couples and children engineered for higher intelligence and other so-called desirable traits.
In this context, the push for a new generation of “Trump babies” fits perfectly into a broader strategy of deciding who gets born, who stays, and ultimately who can participate in American democracy.
opinion: Liberals don’t have kids, conservatives do. That is important.
A long-term strategy requires proper feedback
It’s high time the opposition stopped responding to executive orders, shutdowns and political theater and started listening to black women. “Trump kids” comments and ideology foreshadow a fragile and deeply unequal democracy.
So what is it called: a generational war by those clinging to power to “Make America Great Again” by preserving white supremacy in American political, economic, and cultural life; dramatically reducing black and Latino births and voting rights; and neutralizing the demographic tipping point that would permanently end the white majority in the United States.
Because this is a generational strategy, it demands a generational response—rooted in truth, organized power, and an unwavering commitment to the dignity, agency, and future of Black, Brown, and immigrant communities.
Regina Davis Moss, a public health expert and author with a specialty in Black maternal health, is president and CEO of Our Own Voice: The National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Trump kids’ reveal GOP’s long game: voter suppression | opinion
