Trump posts, then deletes, racist clip of Obamas as monkeys

President Donald Trump shared a post featuring a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, triggering outrage across the U.S. political spectrum on Friday before deleting it in a rare reversal and denying he had seen the clip.

The White House initially dismissed criticism as “fake outrage” over the video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account late Thursday, before later attributing the post to an error by a staff member.

Democrats condemned Trump as “vile” for the post targeting the Obamas — the first Black president and first lady in U.S. history — while a senior Republican senator said the video was overtly racist.

Near the end of the one-minute video, which promoted conspiracy theories about Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, the Obamas appeared for about one second with their faces superimposed on the bodies of monkeys.

The video, uploaded late Thursday amid a burst of posts, repeated false claims that Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the election from Trump.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially played down the controversy, saying the images were taken 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,” Leavitt said in a statement.

About-face

About 12 hours after the post appeared, the administration made an unusual concession.

“A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” a White House official said.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One late Friday, Trump defended the video’s claims of election fraud but said he had not seen the offensive segment.

“I just looked at the first part, and I didn’t see the whole thing,” Trump said, adding that he had directed staff to post it, and they also did not watch it fully. Asked whether he condemned the racist imagery, Trump replied, “Of course I do.”

The Obamas did not immediately comment.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized the White House’s explanation in a post on X.

“No one believes this cover-up from the White House, especially since they originally defended this post,” she wrote. “We are all clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and what he believes.”

‘Disgusting bigotry’

While Democrats seized on the incident, criticism from within Trump’s own Republican Party appeared to prompt the reversal.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, called the video “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and urged its removal.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said the post was “totally unacceptable” and said Trump should apologize.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Trump “vile, unhinged, and malignant,” urging Republicans to “immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry.”

Trump began his political rise by promoting the racist “birther” conspiracy, falsely claiming Obama was not born in the United States.

He has long feuded with his Democratic predecessor, frequently criticizing Obama’s popularity and his Nobel Peace Prize.

In his second term, Trump has shared hyper-realistic but fabricated AI images online, often portraying himself heroically and mobilizing supporters around cultural issues.

During shutdown negotiations, Trump shared a manipulated image of Jeffries wearing a fake mustache and sombrero, which Jeffries described as racist.

Another AI-generated video, created by the same user who posted the Obama clip, showed fighter jets dumping human waste on protesters.

Since returning to the office, Trump has aggressively targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Federal anti-discrimination policies emerged from the 1960s civil rights movement led largely by Black Americans seeking equality after centuries of slavery.

Slavery was abolished in the United States in 1865, though systemic racism persisted for decades afterward.