President Trump has insisted he did not “make a mistake” in posting a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes on his Truth Social account.
Senior Democrats accused him of “disgusting” racism after he shared the video on Thursday night, which initially covered false allegations that the ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped “rig” the 2020 election.
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For about one second at the end of the video, however, the Obamas are shown as apes in a jungle while music from The Lion King plays in the background. The president later removed the video from his account.
Trump, who claimed he did not see the whole video before he “gave it” to staffers, said he condemned the video, but refused to apologise for posting it.
He told reporters on Air Force One on Friday: “I didn’t make a mistake. I mean, I look at … thousands of things and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.”
“Nobody knew that was in the end [of the video], if they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have the sense to take it down,” the president added.
The White House initially defended Trump’s post and rejected claims of racism. “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.
Trump tells journalists on Air Force One that he ‘didn’t make a mistake’
Leavitt was referring to the original meme from which the caricature of the Obamas was taken. In that version various Democrats are shown as monkeys, including President Biden eating a banana. However, the clip shared by Trump only included a segment depicting the Obamas as such.
After criticism from a number of Republicans, Trump deleted the video. A White House official said it had been posted “erroneously” by a staffer.
Senior Democrats reacted with fury to the imagery. “Disgusting behaviour by the president. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” said the press office of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.
Gavin Newsom’s office called the video “disgusting”
PATRICK T FALLON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser and close confidant of Obama, also condemned the imagery. “Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” he wrote on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser
EVAN VUCCI/AP
Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, said the video was racist. “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The president should remove it,” he wrote on X.
Before entering politics Trump promoted the “birther” conspiracy theory that Obama, the only black person to be elected president, was not born in the US and therefore was ineligible to be president. He often refers to him as “Barack Hussein Obama”, apparently to emphasise his Muslim middle name.
During Trump’s first term he described African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as “shithole countries”. After those remarks, Trump said: “I am not a racist. I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”
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The video of the Obamas was shared during a late-night burst of activity when Trump posted dozens of clips on Truth Social, many featuring far-right themes.
President Trump shared the video on his Truth Social platform
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
He posted footage of the extremist Tommy Robinson at a rally in Westminster where the former football hooligan encouraged a crowd to boo Obama and cheer Trump. The video appears to have been doctored.
The president also shared a video of an anti-immigrant Polish politician warning the UK not to accept Muslim refugees. The clip appeared to have been taken from an X user who has previously talked about an “infestation” of Muslims coming to rural parts of the UK and claimed that western governments wanted white people to become “extinct”.
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Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives, who was depicted in an AI-generated clip posted by Trump last year wearing a fake moustache and a sombrero, urged Republicans to condemn the video of the Obamas.
“President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country,” he wrote on X.
“Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom-feeder. Why are GOP leaders like John Thune continuing to stand by this sick individual? Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry.”
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