Did Trump post a video of the obamas as monkeys?
Executive summary
Yes. President Donald Trump shared a short, roughly one-minute video on his Truth Social account that ends with a brief, AI‑style clip depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on monkey or ape bodies for about one to two seconds, a move widely described as racist and condemned publicly [1] [2] [3].
1. What was posted and where
The clip was posted to Donald Trump’s Truth Social account late on Feb. 5 and circulated rapidly across news and social platforms after screenshots and reposts appeared; multiple outlets report the post appeared near midnight and was shared by Trump himself rather than only by a third party [1] [4] [5].
2. What the video contained
The one‑minute video repeats false claims questioning the 2020 election and Dominion-related conspiracy assertions, and at roughly the 59‑ to 60‑second mark an AI‑generated segment shows the Obamas’ faces placed on monkey bodies while “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (often identified by outlets as “In the Jungle (The Mighty Jungle)”) plays — the monkey imagery lasts around one to two seconds before the clip ends [2] [3] [6].
3. Attribution and provenance
Newsweek notes the edited image in the clip carried a watermark linked to a pro‑Trump X account, @XERIAS_X, and reporting indicates the video circulated from pro‑Trump and partisan channels before appearing on Trump’s Truth Social feed, though mainstream coverage uniformly records that Trump reposted or shared the clip on his account [1] [7]. None of the cited reporting establishes that Trump personally created the AI imagery; the accounts describe him as sharing a video that included the offensive image [1] [8].
4. Public reaction and political context
The post prompted immediate condemnation from Democratic figures and critics who labelled the imagery racist and “disgusting,” with statements and social‑media rebukes from political figures such as California’s governor’s office and former Obama advisers cited across outlets [9] [10] [11]. Coverage places the post in a broader pattern of Trump sharing manipulated or AI‑generated visuals of political opponents since his return to office, citing past instances such as a fabricated video of Barack Obama being arrested that Trump previously posted [8] [12].
5. Interpretation and limits of available reporting
News organizations consistently describe the clip as racist and AI‑generated and agree Trump posted it on Truth Social, but the reporting does not—based on the cited sources—prove Trump personally produced the doctored frames or detail the exact chain of digital custody from origin to Trump’s account; outlets note watermarks and reposts from sympathetic X accounts but stop short of forensic attribution to the president himself [1] [7] [8]. Additionally, while nearly all sources describe the clip as part of an election‑fraud narrative, they uniformly report those claims as false or disproven, referencing the broader context of Dominion litigation and settled defamation claims connected to similar allegations [2].
6. Bottom line
The affirmative answer is supported by a broad cross‑section of reporting: Donald Trump shared a Truth Social post that included a short AI‑style sequence depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, and the action prompted bipartisan outrage and media condemnation as racist imagery in the context of a video that propagated debunked election conspiracy claims [2] [3] [6].