{"id":9917,"date":"2026-02-07T12:12:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/07\/trump-removes-racist-video-of-obamas-after-backlash-dw-com\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T12:12:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T12:12:45","slug":"trump-removes-racist-video-of-obamas-after-backlash-dw-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/07\/trump-removes-racist-video-of-obamas-after-backlash-dw-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump removes racist video of Obamas after backlash – DW.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US President Donald Trump<\/a> shared a video on his Truth Social platform that contained racist depictions of former-President Barack Obama<\/a> and his wife, Michelle.<\/p>\n

The video was shared on Trump’s account during a late-night flurry of social media activity on Thursday.<\/p>\n

While the White House<\/a> initially defended the video, it was deleted about 12 hours later on Friday amid a severe backlash from members of Trump’s Republican Party as well as from Democrats.<\/p>\n

\"USA
Leavitt urged the media to ‘stop the fake outrage’ before the video was removed [FILE: November 2025]Image: Evan Vucci\/AP Photo\/dpa\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does the video show?<\/h2>\n

In the video, the Obamas are depicted as apes in a jungle. The portrayal of Black people as apes is a racist trope that has been historically used to dehumanize them and justify violence and discrimination against people of African descent.<\/p>\n

The video repeated widely discredited conspiracy theories that Trump’s election defeat to Joe Biden in 2020 was due to vote-rigging.<\/p>\n

About a minute into the video, the faces of Barack and Michelle Obama appear over the bodies of apes, while the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays.<\/p>\n

What did the White House say about the racist video?<\/h2>\n

In a statement to several news outlets, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s post.<\/p>\n

“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt added, despite the fierce backlash from both Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n

By Friday afternoon, however, the White House had changed its tune, saying the video had been taken down after a “staffer erroneously made the post.”<\/p>\n

Later on Friday, Trump said he saw \u200bthe \u200bstart of the video, which focused on false claims of alleged voter fraud, and gave it to unnamed staffers to post.<\/p>\n

“Nobody \u200dknew that was in the end, if they \u200bwould have looked, they would have seen it, and \u2060probably \u200bthey would have the sense to take \u200cit \u200cdown,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump said he would not apologize for the racist video,\u00a0saying, “I didn’t make a mistake.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Obamas declined to comment on the video.<\/p>\n

\"US
Democrats have roundly slammed Trump’s racist rhetoricImage: Paul Richards\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How did Democrats and Republicans react to the video?<\/h2>\n

Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, said in a post on X that he was “praying (the video) was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”<\/p>\n

Mike Lawler of New York said Trump’s post “is wrong and incredibly offensive \u2014 whether intentional or a mistake \u2014 and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”<\/p>\n

Neither Trump nor the White House has apologized for the video.<\/p>\n

US former-Vice President Kamala Harris said there was a “cover up” at the White House over the post.<\/p>\n

“No one believes this cover up from the White House, especially since they originally defended the post,” Harris said. “We are all clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and what he believes.”<\/p>\n

Top Democrat Chuck Schumer described the video on X as “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent.”<\/p>\n

Schumer also described the Obamas as “two great Americans who make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man.”<\/p>\n

Former Obama aide Ben Rhodes took to X to condemn the US president. “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 said.<\/p>\n

Hakeem Jeffries, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, said Trump’s behavior\u00a0was “vile, racist and and malignant.” He also called Trump a “bottom feeded” and called on Republicans to condemn the president’s “disgusting bigotry.”<\/p>\n

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<\/g><\/svg>Washington removes ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural<\/h2>\n

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p><\/video><\/div>\n

Trump’s history of racist rhetoric<\/h2>\n

Trump has a history of using rhetoric that many view as racist.<\/p>\n

He kick-started\u00a0his political career by pushing the false “birther” conspiracy theory that Obama was not eligible to be president because he was not born in the United States. Barack Obama was born in the US state of Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Trump eventually admitted<\/a> that Obama was indeed born in the US, but blamed his then-election rival, Hillary Clinton, for starting the conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n

Trump faced criticism last year for sharing a video depicting Jeffries, who is Black, with a mustache and sombrero.<\/p>\n

Trump last December called Somalis “garbage” who deserve\u00a0to be thrown out of the US, and has referred to Somalia and other developing nations as “shithole countries.”<\/p>\n

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<\/g><\/svg>Trump’s Africa travel ban: Security move or visa racism?<\/h2>\n

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p><\/video><\/div>\n

Edited by: Sean Sinico<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform that contained racist depictions of former-President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The video was shared on Trump’s account during a late-night flurry of social media activity on Thursday. While the White House initially defended the video, it was deleted about 12 hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9917","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\/9917","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=9917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}