White House takes down video depicting Obamas as apes after backlash
WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: US President Donald Trump was slammed by his own supporters after sharing a video of Obamas being portrayed as apes on his Truth Social account
The sick video was shared on Trump’s social media account(Image: Getty Images)
A racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes has finally been deleted from Donald Trump’s social media account. The AI-generated clip – set to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight – sparked outrage after it was shared on Truth Social on Thursday.
Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is black, called for the president to remove the post, describing it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”. The White House initially pushed back, telling critics to “stop the fake outrage”.
But after defending the clip as an “internet meme video”, it appears to have now been deleted from Trump’s Truth Social page as it can no longer be seen.
A White House official has now said a member of staff “erroneously made the post””, which has now been taken down. One social media user said: “Good – it we as an utterly shameful, racist post.”
Trump shared the bizarre clip without caption, which focused on unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, which he has repeatedly falsely claimed was rigged.
Towards the end of the clip, the Obamas are seen depicted as apes, a disgusting throwback to racist caricatures comparing black people to monkeys.
The vile clip appears to be taken from an X post shared by conservative meme creator Xerias in October. That video also depicts several other high-profile Democrats as animals, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani and Hillary Clinton.
Former President Joe Biden also is depicted as an ape eating a banana. Trump’s spin doctor Karoline Leavitt said the video depicts characters from The Lion King, despite there not being any gorillas in the Disney classic.
In a statement, she said: “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.”
Senator Scott, an ally of Trump, said on social media: “Praying it [the post] was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
New York Representative Mike Lawler, also a Republican, also condemned the post, calling it “wrong and incredibly offensive – whether intentional or a mistake.”
The clip of the Obamas was added to the end of a minute-long video which included claims about a voting conspiracy in Michigan in the 2020 US election, which were debunked as part of Dominion Voting System’s successful civil legal actions.
Trump has a long history of personal attacks on former president Obama, including making repeated false claims that the Hawaii-born Obama was actually born in Kenya and therefore was ineligible to be president.
He later acknowledged that Obama was born in the US.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.
