{"id":9914,"date":"2026-02-07T12:12:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/07\/trump-says-didnt-make-mistake-posting-video-of-obamas-as-apes-the-times\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T12:12:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:12:47","slug":"trump-says-didnt-make-mistake-posting-video-of-obamas-as-apes-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/07\/trump-says-didnt-make-mistake-posting-video-of-obamas-as-apes-the-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says \u2018didn\u2019t make mistake\u2019 posting video of Obamas as apes – The Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Trump has insisted he did not \u201cmake a mistake\u201d in posting a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes on his Truth Social account.<\/p>\n

Senior Democrats accused him of \u201cdisgusting\u201d racism after he shared the video on Thursday night, which initially covered false allegations that the ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped \u201crig\u201d the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sign up for The Times\u2019s weekly US newsletter<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/i> plays in the background. The president later removed the video from his account. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/picture><\/div>\n

Trump, who claimed he did not see the whole video before he \u201cgave it\u201d to staffers, said he condemned the video, but refused to apologise for posting it.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He told reporters on Air Force One on Friday: \u201cI didn\u2019t make a mistake. I mean, I look at \u2026 thousands of things and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody 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,\u201d the president added.<\/p>\n

The White House initially defended Trump\u2019s post and rejected claims of racism. \u201cThis is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King<\/i>. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,\u201d said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
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Trump tells journalists on Air Force One that he \u2018didn\u2019t make a mistake\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

After criticism from a number of Republicans, Trump deleted the video. A White House official said it had been posted \u201cerroneously\u201d by a staffer.<\/p>\n

Senior Democrats reacted with fury to the imagery. \u201cDisgusting behaviour by the president. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,\u201d said the press office of Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.<\/p>\n

\n
\"California<\/picture><\/div>\n
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Gavin Newsom\u2019s office called the video \u201cdisgusting\u201d<\/p>\n

PATRICK T FALLON\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser and close confidant of Obama, also condemned the imagery. \u201cLet 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,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Ben<\/picture><\/div>\n
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Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser<\/p>\n

EVAN VUCCI\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, said the video was racist. \u201cPraying it was fake because it\u2019s the most racist thing I\u2019ve seen out of this White House. The president should remove it,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Before entering politics Trump promoted the \u201cbirther\u201d 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 \u201cBarack Hussein Obama\u201d, apparently to emphasise his Muslim middle name.<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s first term he described African nations, Haiti and El Salvador as \u201cshithole countries\u201d. After those remarks, Trump said: \u201cI am not a racist. I\u2019m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Trump approval rating today: tracking the opinion polls<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\"US<\/picture><\/div>\n
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President Trump shared the video on his Truth Social platform<\/p>\n

SAUL LOEB\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cinfestation\u201d of Muslims coming to rural parts of the UK and claimed that western governments wanted white people to become \u201cextinct\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Why Maga is boycotting the Super Bowl<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald 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\u2019s disgusting bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump has insisted he did not \u201cmake a mistake\u201d in posting a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes on his Truth Social account. Senior Democrats accused him of \u201cdisgusting\u201d racism after he shared the video on Thursday night, which initially covered false allegations that the ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped \u201crig\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}