CNN-President Donald Trump shared a racist video on his social media platform Thursday night that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle, then removed it hours later amid bipartisan outrage, including from a close ally.
Just before noon, the White House blamed a staffer for the video posted to Trump’s Truth Social account and said the post had been removed. The statement came after serious backlash, including from GOP Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, who called the post racist and said Trump should remove it.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” the South Carolina Republican, who’s also the chair of the Senate GOP campaign committee, wrote on X.
The White House had earlier defended the post and downplayed the response to the video, calling it “fake outrage.” But just before noon, an official told CNN, “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.” By that time, the video had been up for nearly 12 hours. A GOP Senate official said Republican lawmakers had called Trump to discuss the post with him.
And it sent the White House into major damage control mode, sources said, with officials, advisers and allies reaching out to lawmakers and the media to try to dispute that Trump himself played any role. One White House adviser asserted that, “The president was not aware of that video, and was very let down by the staffer who put it out.” Another ally sought to place blame on a specific aide.
The US government seems to have a clear message for White nationalists
The Obamas briefly and suddenly appear near the end of the short video, which promotes false claims that voting machines helped steal the 2020 election, with their faces superimposed onto the bodies of apes. As the images appear, for about one second, the start of the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background.
The post, which recalls the racist trope of comparing Black people with monkeys, prompted swift backlash, including from several Republican lawmakers who have had close relationships with the White House.
Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who is considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress, condemned the Truth Social post and called on Trump to apologize.
“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered,” Lawler wrote on X.
Another New York Republican facing a tough reelection battle, Rep. Nick LaLota, also urged Trump to delete the post.
And in the minutes before its removal, two close White House allies in the Senate — Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and Roger Wicker of Mississippi — went public with their own calls for Trump to apologize, in a sign that criticism within the party was beginning to snowball.
“This is totally unacceptable,” Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote on X. “The president should take it down and apologize.”
Neither Trump nor the White House has apologized.
But the post’s deletion marked an abrupt shift from just hours earlier, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had dismissed the initial outcry.
“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 in a statement. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The clip of the Obamas, which was spliced into the end of a longer video promoting unfounded election conspiracies, appeared to come from a video shared last October by an X user and captioned “President Trump: King of the Jungle.”
That original video depicted several prominent Democrats as various animals, as well as showing the Obamas as apes.
The X user who posted that video appeared to be the same one who first posted a video that Trump had shared in October showing the president wearing a crown and flying a fighter jet dumping what appears to be waste on protesters at a “No Kings” rally.
CNN has reached out to the Obamas for comment.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the video in a post on X, writing: “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
The incident is the latest example of Trump drawing criticism for sharing racist content on his social media platform.
Last year, the president posted an apparent AI video depicting Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office. Later last year, Trump and members of his administration also shared digitally altered images and videos of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero, imagery Jeffries publicly described as racist.
Trump also has a long history of posting and reposting conspiracy theories and other false claims. But it is very unusual for the president to take down a social media post — and even more rare to issue an apology or take responsibility for posts insulting large swaths of people.
As he was campaigning for president in October 2015, Trump re-tweeted a post questioning the mental fitness of Iowans.
That post was removed a few hours later, and Trump pinned blame on a “young intern” in a statement: “The young intern who accidentally did a Retweet apologizes.” He went on to lose the Iowa caucuses.
But Trump has also offered some insight into his social media philosophy, telling CNN in August of that year, “You know, I retweet – I retweet for a reason.”
This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Fadel Allassan and Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
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The wickedness of this man Trump knows no bound and the world will never forgive the American asses who voted to put him back in offer DESPITE him telling them the evil he was going to rain down during his time.
We will never forget.
What in THEE hell! Madness!!!
Ditto. 100%. He is a sick monster & absolutely disgusting.
Those of us Americans who are sane & did NOT want him back in office or in office the first time – are appalled and beside ourselves about the damage he’s done to our country and around the world. We are sickened and we WILL keep fighting. We’ll NEVER stop fighting for peace, justice and KINDNESS!!
Why do all CNN’s “news” articles read like rants on Facebook. I don’t defend racist behaviour but can you just report the facts and let people make up their own minds?
He’s absolutely shameless and evil! I hope he rots in Hell!
SMH!!
Why should he rot in hell if the voice of the people is the voice of God?
Are you guys surprised? The man goes on TV and say shit right in your faces, he goes on social media and text these same crap for all to read, he campaign by saying people eating cats and dogs, and as intelligent as we are, we have his mouth pieces coming to us and trying to convince us that what we saw and heard, was not meant to read in that way, or was just a joke, or he didn’t really said or post it.
The sad thing about this is, after all the crazy stuff he said on the campaign trail, and even in his first term in office, talking about “drinking bleach” as a cure for an infectious disease, being impeached, was to be sentenced, the people still decided to give him four more years in office, so all your crying and protesting is a bit too late.
Take a look at the Epstein case! Out of all the names associated with Epstein, they managed to hook two Big ones both from the UK and as you can see everything is fully exposed. We’re talking emails, phone calls, texts, and a number of photos, so the focus is now settled on Europe. For some reason all the Big names and rich and famous from the US, even though they were all associates of Epstein, now seems to be all Saints, since for some reason not one of their names hit the spotlight, and if you gonna tell me that as a man hanging around Epstein, partying, going to his island etc, and haven’t a clue as to what he was doing, are all liars. Remember the cote “he likes them young”.
The Dow closed historically today, at 50,115.67. AI IS GOING TO BE THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS WORLD.POLITICS IN THIS COUNTRY IS SO FILLED WITH HATRED.THE DEMO-RATS HATE THE REPUBLICANS AND VICE VERSA. MOST OF THEM ARE THERE FOR SELF ENRICHMENTS.THEY DO NOT GIVE TWO DUNGS ABOUT THE VOTERS,WHO PUT THEM THERE.
This kinda thing is put out to get this very reaction, both by Trump, then by CNN.
Cause and effect.
Only people who doesn’t really know who they are, get defeated by these types of news articles. Powerful people calyl each other names, and we the fools are getting a heart attack over it.
Know thyself, and things like these wouldn’t faze you.
WHAT THE HELL…! …UNBELIEVEABLE! …DEPICTING THE OBAMAS AS APES…?
…THE PRESIDENCY OF A DUCK.
***
WOW:
It has come to pass.
***
The world has seen the evolution of a ‘…PRESIDENCY OF A DUCK.’
***
NOW:
(i) ‘…WHEN A ‘…WHITE-SKINNED SUPERPOWER NATION PRESIDENT: with
(ii), ‘…A HEART, OBVIOUSLY FILLED WITH HATE AND ANIMOSITY GLARING EVILLY: for
(iii) …ALL TO SEE HIM DEPICTING A FORMER ‘..BLACK-SKINNED PRESIDENT AND WIFE: as
(iv) …APES OF THE JUNGLE: then
(v) …WHEREVER THEY MAY BE, ALL ‘…BLACK-SKINNED PEOPLE: shall
(vi) …INVITE THE ‘…WROUGHT OF THE DEVIL’ UPON HIS ‘…DUCKY’ PRESIDENCY.
***
VOICES OF CONDEMNATION
WHAT WORLD LEADER WOULD NOT JOIN THE ‘…VOICES OF CONDEMNATION?’
***
QUESTION:
WHAT CONGRESS WOULD NOT SEEK TO IMPEACH A LEADER WITH A PRESIDENCY THAT SEEMS PREGNANT WITH RACIAL HATRED AND ANIMOSITY TOWARD BLACK PEOPLE?’
***
WHAT THE HELL…!
***
Evil piece of excrement!
Trump is showing his true racist self and colours now. He’s not holding back any longer after being re-elected. Those that condone this behaviour (and we know there are many) are just as racist. This destabilising individual just wants to sow discord instead of harmony in America and around the world.
Civil rights activists like medgar Evers; James Chaney; Frederick Hampton; Frederick Douglas; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King; Harry & Harriette Moore must all be turning in their graves.
Racism had never really gone away in the US. It was reawakened by the Trump administration.
Sadly, this evil distraction means that another country is going to attacked soon.
WATCH AND SEE ..
Nothing the pedophile does should surprise anyone. The guy is as common dunce with low IQ and a weak vocabulary but at the same time, he’s speaking for his supporters who elected him for that purpose. However, we shouldn’t even be bothered, because we have our own right here to contend with. Former Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, feared no better when he was depicted as a donkey on our National Radio, ABS. We recently saw Senator Pearl Quinn’s engineered toes displayed, with degrading captions and fully endorsed by comments from supporters on social media. Until we can deal with our Trump here, at home, leave the Don alone.
How many of you ever voted for Barack Obama? I voted for him twice.Then years later,i told him,I wanted my votes back.It was too late,then.
Why remove it. Every man is entitle to their own opinion. i have seen worse caricatures from Trump. And really he is not the first doing this. When Obama was first elected the Tea Party did that also. Too much ado of nothing.
Lol,
I’m sorry, but when did Antigua become part of the USA?
Sure plenty of Antiguans go there to work, sometimes even legally.
But last time I looked,, we can’t vote in USA elections, and even if every man woman and child could, that would amount to about 0.0003% of the overall vote
Yes , Trump is racist, but so what? Gaston and the rest of the political elites have been getting rich off your backs for years and you say nothing.
I guess you all like getting shafted literally by a black man than reading about some Orange pedo who makes some racist comments in another country
#GASLIGHTING is one of the mental tools used, by poliTRICKtans and political parties of all persuasions to drum up support for their cause(s) and to destabilize their opponent(s) and to control the narratives of the present .
Unfortunately, time and history has shown again and again, that the People, the unsuspecting ones who are controlled by such poliTRICKtans always suffer the most from such #GASLIGHTING.
Antigua, Barbuda & REDONDA which is replete with such poliTRICKtans, charlatans, pied pipers and the likes have being controlled by the likes of DONALD TRUMP for decades. It’s evident in the campaigning for power and to retain power over those same unsuspecting people.
Recently, Chet Greene or the author of an opinion piece posted here on ANR – Antigua Newsroom in a letter titled: “Gangrene in the Opposition: The UPPs Terminal Unravelingz, was the same form of #GASLIGHTING, as that used by Trump and his MAGA25 supporters. The only difference is there wasn’t a picture of say Jamal Pringle or Harold Lovell or any other member of the UPP depicted in Caricature Form covered in sores caused by GANGRENE.
On the other hand, what if Alister Thomas decided to use the same #GASLIGHTING tactics against Chet Greene, Gaston Browne and the ABLP Gang depicting them in caricature form looking like stray dogs covered in CHIGGERS, running around stealing food from the mouths of children? Chet Greene should understand the use of the word CHIGGER, as well for years ago, it was associated with the Community which he now represents.
Only fools who don’t know themselves and their history will fall prey to poliTRICKtans and their psychopathic behaviors.
By the way, has Vere Bird #the turd taken down his caricature of a character pissing on the UPP?
Jumbee_Picknee aka Ras Smood
De’ole Dutty Peg 🦶🏿 Garrat_Bastard
Vere Edwards
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