Did Trump post a video on true social depicting the Obama’s as monkeys?
Executive summary
Donald Trump posted a one-minute video to his Truth Social account that, near its end, briefly depicts former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on monkeys or apes, an image widely characterized as racist by multiple news outlets [1] [2] [3]. The clip appears for roughly a second toward the video’s close and drew immediate condemnation from Democrats and commentators while the White House offered contextual defenses calling the post part of an internet meme video [2] [4] [3].
1. What was posted: the core factual record
Reporting from major outlets consistently documents that the president shared a roughly one-minute post on Truth Social that included an AI-generated image placing the Obamas’ faces on ape bodies near the end of the clip — described as appearing for about one second and timed at roughly the 59-second mark by some accounts [1] [2] [4]. Multiple news organizations — including The New York Times, AFP-backed outlets, CTV News, Newsweek, Axios and others — report the same essential detail: the Obamas’ faces were briefly shown on monkey/ape bodies within that Truth Social video [1] [2] [5] [6] [3].
2. The content and provenance: AI imagery and election-conspiracy framing
The posted clip mixed election-conspiracy claims — repeating allegations about ballot-counting and Dominion that have been widely debunked in prior reporting — with hyper-realistic or AI-generated imagery, consistent with the president’s prior use of fabricated visuals on social platforms, including earlier deepfake-style posts of Obama and other Black political figures [7] [3] [8]. Outlets explicitly identify the monkey frames as AI-generated or digitally manipulated and place the image within a broader montage that sought to lampoon political opponents while advancing false election-related claims [7] [3].
3. Reaction: condemnation, political framing and platform fallout
Responses were swift and harsh from Democratic leaders, activists and commentators who called the image racist and “disgusting,” and at least one governor’s office publicly demanded Republicans denounce the post [2] [6] [1]. Social-media users and watchdog accounts flagged the post on X and other platforms, while some reports linked the specific Truth Social upload to service disruptions as users circulated screenshots and the clip [9] [10]. Coverage emphasizes the historical context that caricaturing Black people as apes has long served as racist propaganda, a point raised by outlets reporting on the incident [3].
4. Official defense and the narrow dispute in coverage
The White House press office framed the clip as coming from an “internet meme video” that also depicted Trump as “King of the Jungle” and suggested criticism was “fake outrage,” a defense reported alongside the condemnations [3]. That explanation does not dispute the factual assertion that the Obamas’ faces were shown on ape bodies in the shared clip; it situates the image within a claimed satirical origin and provides the administration’s attempt to contextualize intent [3]. Independent reporting, however, uniformly documents the presence of the depiction itself, leaving the question of intent to political interpretation [1] [2].
5. Final assessment and limits of available reporting
Based on the contemporaneous, corroborating reporting across multiple reputable outlets, the plain factual answer is yes: Trump posted a Truth Social video that briefly depicted Barack and Michelle Obama with monkey/ape faces [1] [2] [3]. Reporting establishes the clip’s duration, placement in the video, its AI/manipulated character and the ensuing political fallout, but available sources do not — and have not — definitively established the president’s personal intent beyond the White House’s contextual defense, nor do they provide the original creator attribution for that specific AI image beyond labeling it as an internet meme or AI-generated content [3] [7]. Those gaps remain outside the scope of current reporting cited here.