US President Donald Trump has once again sparked outrage over his online posts, this time after sharing a video depicting former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.
The reposted clip was published as part of a late-night flurry of messages posted to President Trump’s Truth Social account.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
By noon Friday, the video had been removed, but not after the post drew bipartisan condemnation for being blatantly racist.
Tim Scott, currently the only Black Republican in the Senate, said in a post on social media platform
“The president should remove it,” he added.
Fellow Republican Rep. Mike Lawler called on Trump to remove the post, calling it “incredibly offensive, whether intentionally or by mistake.”
Democrats, meanwhile, sought to link the video to President Trump’s history of insensitive comments and called on Republicans to condemn this latest episode.
“President Obama and Michelle Obama are smart, caring, and patriotic Americans. They are the best representatives of this country,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged, malignant bottom feeder. Why do Republican leaders like John Thune continue to support this sick man?”
The White House initially defended the post as an “Internet meme.” It later announced that the post had been “inadvertently” shared by a White House staffer, not the president.
Trump himself denied responsibility in a briefing with reporters on Air Force One, saying he had only seen the beginning of a short video clip containing false claims about his 2020 election loss.
President Trump rejected calls to apologize, saying, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.” “I’ve seen thousands of things. I saw the beginning of it. It was okay.”
stir up anger
President Trump has long had a hostile relationship with Obama and his wife, the first black married couple in U.S. history to serve as president and first lady.
One of Trump’s first forays into national politics was during Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, pushing the false claim that the Democratic leader was not born in the United States.
Trump, a Republican, is known to be a heavy social media user and co-founded Truth Social in February 2022 after being briefly banned from other major social media sites.
There, he often reposts memes and videos generated by artificial intelligence to promote his public image and political platform.
The video, which includes the Obamas, was posted online at 11:44 p.m. ET (4:44 p.m. Japan time) as part of a series of clips shared by President Trump.
The image of the Obamas as monkeys appears about 59 seconds into the video, which is just 1 minute and 2 seconds long.
He seems to have fallen into a documentary style corner pushing baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election, alleging it was marred by fraud and problems with electronic voting machines. President Trump has repeatedly spread lies denying that he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
The video, which carries a watermark from a site called Patriot News Outlet, combines a doctored image of the Obamas with the 1961 song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
Critics have regularly accused President Trump of deliberately stirring up anger to distract from politically toxic domestic issues, including the recent release of millions of files related to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s name appears in those files.
I have a midterm exam coming up
Some Republicans, like New York’s Lawler, also face tough re-election campaigns as the country approaches November’s midterm elections.
President Trump has warned that he could face new impeachment proceedings if Republicans lose control of Congress.
Initially, hours after the video was reposted to President Trump’s “Truth Social” account, the White House dismissed the backlash as exaggerated.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt told multiple U.S. news organizations that the image of the Obamas was taken from an “Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters in the 1994 animated feature film The Lion King.”
“Stop the false outrage and report on what actually matters to the American people today,” she said in a statement to ABC News.
Even after the post was deleted, Levitt continued to ignore protests and demands for an apology from President Trump.
In an interview with Fox News, she added that President Trump has already mentioned the incident with some members of Congress.
“He paid tribute to and spoke to members of Congress today, including Sen. Tim Scott. The post has since been deleted. But, of course, we’ll leave it to the left-wing media to talk about this all day long,” she told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
“He did delete that post. Again, this only serves as a distraction for the fake news media,” Levitt continued, quickly turning the conversation to Trump’s accomplishments.
But Mr. Levitt’s explanation did not dampen bipartisan pressure on Mr. Trump to abandon the release of the video.
Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska was among those who called for his removal.
“Even if this were a Lion King meme, a reasonable person would understand that it has a racist undertone,” Ricketts wrote about X.
“The White House should remove this and apologize, just like anyone should do when they make a mistake.”
Democrats, on the other hand, questioned Trump’s suitability as president. In a social media post, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi drew a line between the video and the long history of racist depictions of black people in the United States.
He pointed to similarly dehumanizing illustrations shared during the Jim Crow era, from 1865 to the mid-20th century, when black people faced racial discrimination and unequal rights after the abolition of slavery.
“This type of Jim Crow-style dehumanization is pathetic and a disgrace to the office,” Krishnamoorthi wrote.
