Barack Obama has broken his silence after Donald Trump shared a ‘racist’ video featuring the Obamas as apes, warning US politics has lost ‘decency, courtesy, kindness’ and become a ‘clown show’
Barack Obama has finally spoken out after Donald Trump shared a deeply offensive racist video featuring the former president and his wife Michelle. The Democrat criticised Trump, warning that the “shame” and “decorum” that once characterised US politics have now been lost.
On 5 February, the current US President shared a shocking post on social media depicting the Obamas as primates in a jungle. The appalling video was subsequently removed, but an unrepentant Trump refused to apologise for the racist post, instead shifting blame onto a staff member, stating: “I didn’t make a mistake.”
Obama, during a podcast interview, warned that the US political landscape had devolved into a “clown show”.
When asked directly about the video by podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama, without mentioning Trump by name, delivered a damning critique of the current administration, reports the Mirror.
Obama stated: “First of all, I think it’s important to recognise that the majority of the American people find this behaviour deeply troubling. It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction.”
Obama further noted that whilst travelling across the US, he encounters individuals who “still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness”.
He continued: “There’s this sort of circus that’s unfolding across social media and television. And what rings true is that there appears to be no embarrassment about this amongst individuals who previously believed you needed some form of dignity and a sense of decency and reverence for the position, correct? That’s been abandoned.”
Whilst the White House and the majority of Republicans have historically rushed to shield Trump or ignore his outrageous rants and behaviour, the racist Obama meme sparked criticism from within the Republican Party itself.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina declared the post was “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.
Senator Roger Wicker, from Mississippi, stated: “This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize.”
Senator Pete Ricketts, of Nebraska, remarked “a reasonable person sees the racist context”.
The footage formed part of a flurry of posts that reinforced his baseless assertions the 2020 election was rigged against him, despite courts and Trump’s first-term attorney general discovering no proof of widespread fraud.
Trump has historically employed provocative, and occasionally racist, language against the former president in a spiteful bid to attack his predecessors. This included promoting a falsehood that Obama was not a native-born American.