President Donald Trump’s racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle was deleted Friday after a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats who criticized the video as offensive.
Trump said later Friday that he won't apologize for the post: “I didn't make a mistake,” he said.
The Republican president’s Thursday night post was blamed on a staffer after widespread backlash, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. A rare admission of a misstep by the White House, the deletion came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed “fake outrage” over the post. After calls for its removal — including by Republicans — the White House said a staffer had posted the video erroneously.
The post was part of a flurry of overnight activity on Trump's Truth Social account that amplified his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite courts around the country and Trump's first-term attorney general finding no evidence of systemic fraud.
Trump has a record of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric — from feeding the lie that Obama was not a native-born US citizen to crude generalizations about majority-Black countries.
The post came in the first week of Black History Month and days after a Trump proclamation cited “the contributions of black Americans to our national greatness” and “the American principles of liberty, justice, and equality.”
An Obama spokeswoman said the former president, a Democrat, had no response.
‘An internet meme’
Nearly all of the 62-second clip appears to be from a conservative video alleging deliberate tampering with voting machines in battleground states as 2020 votes were tallied. At the 60-second mark is a quick scene of two jungle primates, with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed on them.
Those frames originated from a separate video, previously circulated by an influential conservative meme maker. It shows Trump as “King of the Jungle” and depicts Democratic leaders as animals, including Joe Biden, who is white, as a jungle primate eating a banana.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said by text.
Disney's 1994 feature film that Leavitt referenced is set on the savannah, not in the jungle, and it does not include great apes.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt added.
By noon, the post had been taken down, with responsibility placed on a Trump subordinate.
Trump, answering questions from reporters accompanying him Friday night aboard Air Force One, said the video was about fraudulent elections and that he liked what he saw.
“I liked the beginning. I saw it and just passed it on, and I guess probably nobody reviewed the end of it,” he said.
Asked if he condemned the video's racism, Trump said, “Of course I do.”
The White House explanation raises questions about control of Trump’s social media account, which he's used to levy import taxes, threaten military action, make other announcements and intimidate political rivals. The president often signs his name or initials after policy posts.
The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how posts are vetted and when the public can know when Trump himself is posting.
Mark Burns, a pastor and a prominent Trump supporter who is Black, said Friday on X that he'd spoken “directly” with Trump and that he recommended to the president that he fire the staffer who posted the video and publicly condemn what happened.
“He knows this is wrong, offensive, and unacceptable,” Burns posted.
Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press she does “not buy the White House's commentary.”
Condemnation across the political spectrum Trump and White House social media accounts frequently repost memes and artificial intelligence-generated videos. As Leavitt did Friday, Trump allies typically cast them as humorous.
This time, condemnations flowed from across the spectrum — along with demands for an apology that doesn't appear to be coming.
