Donald Trump shattered another unwritten presidential rule as he became the first commander-in-chief to deliberately say ‘f***’ live on TV.

Before, former presidents typically saved such strong language for private rants about ineffective cabinet members or stubborn military leaders, or perhaps when venting to the first lady behind closed doors in the East Wing.

However, everything changed on Tuesday when Trump expressed his anger on the South Lawn of the White House. It was 6.37 am, and he strolled, without a tie in the humid weather, towards his Marine One helicopter to depart for a NATO summit in The Hague.

Like many of his predecessors the head-spinning frustration of trying to broker peace in the Middle East appeared to have got the better of him.

‘They have no idea what they are doing!’ Trump shouted above the noise of the helicopter blades, stressing the word to ensure that the reporters standing just a few feet away could hear him clearly.

Trump’s critics suggested he had succumbed to a red mist of anger as he broke a traditional presidential taboo on that level of profanity.

But body language expert Judi James said it was the opposite. Trump had not ‘lost it’. Instead, it was an intentional ‘controlled explosion’ and a ‘presidential mic drop’ designed to fully capture the attention of Iran and Israel. 

‘Straight talking is said to be central to the art of good communication and Trump clearly speaks straight from the hip to the rest of the world here,’ she said. ‘He ejected the ‘f***’ word from his mouth like a short-range missile.’

But the use of the f-word so publicly will have been jarring for many Americans, and it represents a watershed for the state of political discourse.

Experts say the standard of language used by politicians has been deteriorating in recent years.

That slide into obscenities has been fueled by the increasing polarization of right and left, and the escalating anger of debate on social media.

‘We’re witnessing a major transition in the history of profanity,’ said Grayson Quay, an author and consultant.

Martha Kumar, a presidential scholar who has observed White House communications since December 1975, told the Daily Mail: ‘ With Trump, we see less of a difference than we do in many presidents, between their public facing and what they are in private.

‘And I think that that is a benefit to have that narrow difference between the two, because the public gets to see who the president is.

‘With Nixon we didn’t know a lot about how he dealt with other people and what his thoughts were. With Trump you know every thought bubble.’

She added: ‘I think it also represents a general coarsening of language.’ As lawmakers try to connect with voters through X and other social media their messages have become more profane.

Swear words are no longer just caught on hot mics, but openly and intentionally used.

Data produced by Quorum, a public affairs company, found that in 2023 members of Congress used f-bombs on X a total of 205 times, up from none in 2015.

While they blame Trump for lowering the tone of political debate it was Democrat lawmakers who used more profanity on X than Republicans – including 161 uses of ‘s***’ in 2023.

President Donald Trump speaks to press before his departure at the White House to route The Hague, Netherlands on June 24, 2025, in Washington D.C. to attend NATO Summit in Netherlands

President Trump’s helicopter takes off as he heads to a NATO summit 

Recently, the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused Democrats of being ‘obsessed with saying ‘f***ing’ as the strategy to win back the voters that rejected them in 2024.’

Indeed, in that 2024 campaign it was not Trump, but Vice President Kamala Harris, who dropped an f-bomb on stage.

She told a group of young voters: ‘We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t, and then you need to kick that f***ing door down.’

It is all a long way from the Watergate era when America were shocked to discover that President Richard Nixon had cursed in private.

Transcripts of his White House tapes revealed many sections marked ‘expletive deleted.’

Nixon himself would later say: ‘People said my language was bad but, Jesus, you should have heard LBJ.’

And while President John F. Kennedy was hailed for his soaring oratory, in private he swore like the sailor he had been as a young man.

JFK once told a general on the phone: ‘This is obviously a f***-up.’

President Richard Nixon sits in his White House office, Aug. 16, 1973, as he poses for pictures after delivering a nationwide television address dealing with Watergate

President John F. Kennedy privately told a general there had been a ‘f*** up’

Later, in 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney caused consternation when, in front of witnesses, he told Senator Patrick Leahy to ‘Go f*** yourself’ on the Senate floor in a row over the Iraq war.

At the ceremony to sign Obamacare into law in 2010 Joe Biden was caught turning to Barack Obama and whispering ‘This is a big f***ing deal.

However, the process of normalizing public presidential profanity really began with Trump.

In 2016 words like ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ and even ‘s***’ were being used at his rallies. 

At a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Trump silently mouthed the word ‘f***’ as he said of American companies relocating overseas, ‘You can tell them to go f*** themselves.’

The crowd cheered wildly as he did so.

Two years later reports emerged he had referred privately to African nations as ‘s***hole countries.’

And by the end of his first term the f-word was being thrown around privately, and in hot mic moments.

In March 2020, just before giving an Oval Office speech on the looming coronavirus outbreak, Trump was picked up on a hot mic saying, ‘Oh f***.’

He went on ‘Uh-oh, I’ve got a pen mark,’ after spotting a stain on his clothing.

President Trump drops an f-bomb on the White House lawn

The target of Trump’s frustration was Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L)

Seven months later, as the 2020 election approached, his frustration boiled over during a two-hour ‘radio rally’ on the late Rush Limbaugh’s show. Then too, the subject was Iran.

‘If you f*** around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before,’ Trump said.

Limbaugh’s listeners did not hear the president’s profanity as it was edited out, but it was included in the publicly released transcript.

The show was played on terrestrial radio stations coast to coast, which could have led to a flood of complaints to the Federal Communications Commission had the f-word not been bleeped.

Later, when deciding whether to pardon people convicted of January 6 offences, Trump reportedly told his staff: ‘F*** it, release them all.’

Rather than condemning Trump for profanity Democrat strategists believe Trump’s use of it has helped him with the electorate.

They are embracing it in an attempt to emulate his success with voters.

Kamala Harris also dropped an f-bomb on stage in the 2024 campaign

At a rally in Oregon, first-term Democrat congresswoman Maxine Dexter said: ‘I don’t swear in public very well but we have to f*** Trump.’

Afterwards, she told her local newspaper: ‘My only wish, frankly, is that I had said the line with more conviction.’

There was no such lack of conviction from Trump as he dropped his presidential f-bomb.