Did Trump post a depiction of the Obama’s’ faces on primate bodies
Executive summary
Yes — President Donald Trump’s official Truth Social account posted a short video that, near its end, briefly showed former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on ape bodies; the clip appeared for about one second, was set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and was removed after hours of bipartisan backlash [1] [2].
1. What exactly appeared in the post
The 62-second clip shared on Truth Social advanced false claims about 2020 voting machines and, at roughly the 59th second, inserted an image showing the Obamas’ faces on apes’ bodies while the Tokens’ song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays — a depiction widely described in reporting as recalling racist caricatures comparing Black people to monkeys [1] [2] [3].
2. How long the image was visible and where it ran
Multiple outlets report the image appears only briefly — roughly one second at the end of the video — and that the clip remained on Trump’s Truth Social account for several hours before removal, attracting thousands of interactions during that window [2] [4].
3. Provenance and technical character of the clip
News organizations traced the Obama ape frame to a longer meme-style video previously shared online in October by a conservative meme creator known as Xerias on X, and media analysts described the frame as AI-generated or digitally superimposed rather than a candid photo or archival footage — a pattern consistent with hyper-realistic partisan deepfakes circulating in fringe pro-Trump networks [3] [5] [1].
4. Immediate political reaction and bipartisan outrage
The post prompted swift condemnation across the political spectrum: prominent Democrats labeled it racist and vile, and Republican lawmakers including Senator Tim Scott and other members called for its removal and criticized the depiction, which spurred the White House to take down the post amid mounting bipartisan pressure [6] [3] [4].
5. White House explanation, denials and competing narratives
The White House initially offered defenses — including a statement from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointing to an older right‑wing account that first shared the video — and later a senior official attributed the reposting to a staffer who “erroneously made the post,” explanations reported by multiple outlets; those claims were noted alongside continued public skepticism in coverage, and outlets recorded that the White House removed the post following the controversy [6] [7] [1].
6. Broader context, limits of available reporting and implications
Reporting situates this incident within a pattern of the president amplifying provocative AI-altered visuals and conspiracy-laden content on his platforms, and notes the clip’s political and racial valence — especially given Barack and Michelle Obama’s status as the nation’s first Black president and first lady — while media coverage also documents that the election-related claims in the video have been repeatedly debunked by courts and fact-checkers; available sources do not provide definitive public evidence about internal White House intent beyond the staffer‑error claim, so assessments of motive rely on pattern and context reported by outlets [5] [8] [1].