Trump heralds black help in cryptic submit after Obama ape meme backlash
Donald Trump has heralded black support for voter ID in a cryptic post just hours after sparking huge backlash for sharing a meme depicting the Obamas as apes.
The President posted a screengrab Friday from a recent CNN broadcast showing that across all races Americans overwhelmingly support voter ID: 85 percent for whites, 82 percent for Latinos and 76 percent for black voters.
The proportion of black voters was highlighted with a circle in Trump’s post.
The President has made voter ID a central tenet of his administration but it faces opposition from Democratic lawmakers who claim the policy would disenfranchise vast swathes of the population including black voters.
Trump’s voter ID post came after a late-night meme he shared depicting the Obamas as apes sparked widespread condemnation, including from senior Republicans.
The clip focused on his accusations of fraud during the 2020 election. An AI segment at the end flashed the Obamas’ faces superimposed on ape bodies, set to The Tokens’ song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
The White House blamed the post on an unnamed junior staffer, despite press secretary Karoline Leavitt this morning slamming ‘fake outrage’ over the meme.
‘A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,’ a spokesman for the President told the Daily Mail on Friday.
President Donald Trump during an event revealing ‘TrumpRx,’ a website for purchasing discounted prescriptions, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in Washington, DC, on Thursday
The President on Friday posted a screengrab from a recent CNN broadcast showing that across all races Americans overwhelmingly support voter ID: 85 percent for white, 82 percent for Latino and 76 percent for black voters. The proportion of black voters was highlighted with a circle in Trump’s post
President Barack Obama (R) and first lady Michelle Obama walk across the South Lawn after returning to the White House on Marine One July 12, 2016
The President received widespread backlash over accusations of racism after he posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes
Leavitt earlier told the Daily Mail: ‘This is 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.’
Trump deleted his post after South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, called it ‘the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.’
The clip belongs to a pro-Trump account on X but was reposted by the President on his Truth Social platform.
Other prominent Republican senators joined Scott in demanding that Trump take down the video.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi posted on X: ‘This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize.’
Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska wrote: ‘Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.’
Trump’s video sparked condemnation from the senators’ Democratic colleagues.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially doubled down on the President’s post
Senator Tim Scott called the video ‘the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House’
‘Disgusting behavior by the President,’ California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office wrote on X. ‘Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.’
Democratic political strategist Adam Parkhomenko posted: ‘This is overt racism. Full stop. There’s no “misinterpretation” and no excuse. This is who he is, who he’s always been, and why he should never be anywhere near power again.’
Trump’s longstanding feud with Obama stretches back decades, beginning when he first promoted claims that the 44th president was born outside the United States.
Trump has intensified attacks against Obama on social media since starting his second term, accusing the former president of ‘treason’.
The President claimed Obama betrayed the US by spying on his presidential campaign over accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump has posted AI memes on Truth Social showing Obama’s arrest and imprisonment.
Trump’s video of the Obamas has been liked more than 2,500 times and reposted more than 1,100 times on Truth Social.
The Daily Mail has contacted the Obamas for comment.
