White House deletes video showing Obamas as apes after key ally condemns meme as ‘most racist thing I’ve seen’
The President received widespread backlash over accusations of racism after he posted a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes
WASHINGTON — The White House deleted a meme video posted on President Trump’s Truth Social that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes — after GOP Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) called the clip the “most racist thing I’ve seen” and demanded it be taken down.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the post and accused critics of fomenting “fake outrage” — but the video was taken down a little before noon Friday.
A White House official added that a staffer had “erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
Senator Tim Scott called the video 'the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House'
Scott, the highest-ranking black Republican in Congress, chided the White House earlier on X: “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.”
“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered,” added Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).
Georgia conservative activist Debbie Dooley also wrote on X she was “horrified” by the video.
“I am no fan of the Obamas, but the graphic designer that created the video that shows The Obamas as apes needs to be fired and banned from the White House,” 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,’” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Friday statement.
Dooley was one of the original co-founders of the Tea Party movement that helped House Republicans retake the majority under the 44th president in the 2010 midterms.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King,’” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an earlier statement.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The roughly one-minute video, which appeared on Trump’s Truth Social account late Thursday but was created by an anonymous X account, was mostly focused on claims of vote-rigging in the 2020 election — but showed AI-generated images of the Obamas as apes while the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played in the background.
It was pulled from a longer video depicting prominent Democrats — including former President Joe Biden, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — as characters from the animated Disney film.
Biden appeared as a chimp, Schumer as a zebra and Newsom seemed to be an impala.
“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” Newsom’s office’s X account posted.
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also appeared in the video as an elephant, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is also black, was portrayed as a meerkat and former Vice President Kamala Harris was a turtle.
“President Trump: King of the Jungle,” read the original post, most of the footage from which did not make it into the Truth Social video.
The X account behind the memes had also produced an AI-generated video of Trump dressed as a fighter pilot and cruising over “No Kings” protesters in a jet that dumped raw sewage on them.
Amid last year’s government shutdown, the president also trolled Jeffries by using meme fakery to depict the House Democratic leader wearing a sombrero in a video while mariachi music played in the background.
The House Democratic leader called that post racist as well.
Trump admitted to NBC News in an interview recorded Wednesday that he “sometimes will retweet” or “retruth” posts that he doesn’t verify first — including claims about the hacking of voting machines by foreign actors.
Reps for the Obamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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