President Donald Trump is drawing widespread outrage and condemnation for sharing a video that contains a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. The White House has defended Trump’s action, the latest example of him promoting racism and targeting the Obamas.
Trump shares conspiracy theory video with racist clip, receives widespread condemnation
The offensive clip comes at the end of a minute-long video shared by Trump on his Truth Social platform, one of dozens of posts he made on the social media site between Thursday night and early Friday morning. The video primarily espouses long-debunked conspiracy theories about potential foreign hacking of Dominion voting machines. In 2023, Fox News reached a $787 million settlement with Dominion over false claims that its machines had been rigged in the 2020 election. Toward the end of the video that Trump shared, it cuts to a brief snippet that shows the heads of Michelle and Barack Obama pasted onto the bodies of apes, smiling and dancing to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” popular from the movie The Lion King.
Outrage over the clip has been immediate. The press office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted, “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Trump ally and the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, said he was “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
Political podcaster Tim Miller rejected the notion that Trump may have accidentally shared the clip.
“It was intentional and Trump has been making racist attacks on the Obamas for like 20 years now hope that clears it up for you,” Miller posted.
Others noted the timing of the post.
“Y’all’s president just put the Obamas faces on gorillas. We’re not even 7 days into black history month,” someone wrote with a meme GIF.
White House defends post, which is the latest example of Trump’s racism.
The clip was deleted without any explanation or apology by early Friday afternoon. The White House defended the president’s posting of the offensive video. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement saying, “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.” Leavitt also demanded that the press “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Trump has a long history of racism, including specific attacks against former President Obama. His first major foray into presidential politics came during the Obama administration when Trump became the most prominent voice pushing the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that claimed Obama wasn’t an American citizen and that he had forged his Hawaiian birth certificate. Since returning to office, Trump has continued to take shots at Obama, including removing the former president’s portrait from public viewing in the White House. Trump has also shared other racist memes, including an AI-generated deepfake video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. In recent months, he has made racist attacks against Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and the Somali American community, continuing his vitriol even after Omar was attacked by an apparent Trump supporter at a town hall meeting.
Rather than claiming that this latest racist post was accidental or removing the offensive comment, the Trump White House appeared to double down on the president’s most recent move to disseminate racist material. Given the track record of Trump’s comments and posts and his animosity toward the Obamas, it is disturbing but not surprising that he would share, and his administration would defend, such demeaning and offensive content.