Did trump post Obamas as apes

1. What was posted and where

Late on Thursday night, Trump’s verified Truth Social account shared a roughly 62‑second clip about alleged 2020 voting‑machine anomalies that included, near its end, a brief AI‑generated sequence in which the Obamas’ faces were placed on ape bodies set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a frame that drew immediate attention and was later deleted from his feed ^{[3] [4]}.

2. How long it stayed up and the origin of the clip

The post remained publicly accessible for about 12 hours before being removed, and the ape frames appear to be taken from a longer meme video originally circulated by a conservative meme creator whose post bore an X watermark — Xerias — suggesting the Obamas segment was splice‑in content from an earlier October post ^{[5] [4] [2]}.

3. Reactions inside and outside the White House

Reaction was swift and bipartisan: lawmakers across the aisle called the imagery racist, and even allies such as Senator Tim Scott described it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” prompting calls for removal ^{[1] [2]}. The White House’s initial public line, voiced by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, was to dismiss criticism as “fake outrage” and to frame the clip as part of an “internet meme” depicting Democrats as Lion King characters ^{[4] [3]}.

4. The White House backtrack and explanation

After the backlash escalated, a White House official told multiple outlets that a staffer had “erroneously” posted the video and the post was taken down; outlets including Reuters and Variety reported that explanation while also documenting the earlier defense and the subsequent deletion ^{[6] [7]}. Reporting shows the White House initially defended the repost before the deletion, underscoring an internal contradiction between defence and retraction ^{[4] [6]}.

5. Historical context and why this mattered

News organizations and commentators emphasized that depicting Black public figures as apes invokes a long, violent racist trope historically used to dehumanize people of African descent and justify slavery and segregation, which is why the clip’s appearance on an official presidential account produced broad condemnation ^{[5] [8]}. Multiple outlets explicitly noted that the imagery echoes racist caricatures and that the episode fits a pattern in which the president’s social accounts have circulated controversial or inflammatory material ^{[8] [9]}.

6. What reporting did and did not establish

Reporting across major outlets consistently establishes that the clip ran on Trump’s Truth Social page, included the Obamas as apes, generated bipartisan outrage, and was deleted after roughly 12 hours; reporting also identifies a likely source account and an official explanation that a staffer posted it in error ^{[1] [4] [7]}. What available reporting does not definitively establish is who in the White House uploaded the clip, whether the president personally approved the repost before it went live, or the internal deliberations that produced the initial defense and later retraction; those details remain unreported in the cited coverage ^{[6] [7]}.