A few days ago, Donald Trump posted a video on his Truth Social account that showed Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed on dancing apes in a jungle setting. The clip was part of a longer election-related conspiracy video and was removed roughly 12 hours later.
The imagery touched on a racist trope that many Americans expected wouldn’t still show up in political posts, especially from the president of the United States.
Some Republicans publicly pushed back. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott wrote on X, “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
Alabama Senator Katie Britt also criticized the post, saying, “This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.”
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Rather than face criticism, Trump muttered complaints in private about the senators’ bold statements. “The president felt he could’ve handled that matter privately. He was like, ‘We work together all the time. He didn’t need to comment publicly,’” a senior aide told CNN.
Another source claimed Trump used foul language about Britt and said she was “dead” to him.
The White House initially tried to deflect blame. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt described the video as part of a broader “internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” urging critics to “please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
But that defense didn’t stand. After pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, the clip was removed from Trump’s social media account. Officials said it had been posted “erroneously” by a staffer.
Trump himself has refused to apologize. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, he insisted he did not make a mistake and blamed the incident on his team. “I looked at it, I saw it and I just looked at the first part,” he said. “I didn’t see the whole thing; I guess during the end of it there was some kind of a picture that people don’t like. … then I gave it to the people.”
Asked if he would say sorry, Trump bristled, saying, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”
The video’s racist undertones cut especially deep because it came during Black History Month and because it recycled a centuries‑old trope that dehumanizes Black people by comparing them to apes.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
