Trump obama ape
Executive summary
President Donald Trump reposted an AI-generated video on Truth Social that briefly shows former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on apes, prompting bipartisan condemnation and the clip’s removal; the White House initially defended the post as a meme and then said a staffer “erroneously” posted it [1] [2] [3]. Critics across the political spectrum called the depiction a revival of a long-standing racist trope, while allies argued it was part of a larger meme video and not a deliberate racial attack [4] [5] [6].
1. What happened: a late-night repost, a brief clip, and a deletion
Late on Feb. 5, 2026, the president’s Truth Social account amplified a roughly 62-second video about alleged 2020 voting-machine anomalies that, in its final seconds, flashed a clip showing Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces on animated ape bodies set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”; the post was taken down the following morning after public outcry [7] [1] [2]. Multiple outlets report the post was removed after about 12 hours and that the White House later told reporters a staffer had “erroneously” made the post [4] [1] [3].
2. Why many observers called it racist: historical context and immediate reactions
Observers and civil-rights leaders framed the imagery as a direct evocation of a centuries-old racist trope that compared Black people to apes to dehumanize them—a history explicitly cited by outlets and commentators condemning the post—prompting swift denunciations from figures including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and NAACP leadership [2] [8] [9]. Even some Republicans demanded removal and apology; Senator Tim Scott called the post “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” illustrating how the image’s racial meaning cut across partisan lines [4] [6].
3. The White House defense and its retrenchment
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially characterized the clip as part of an “internet meme video” portraying Trump as “King of the Jungle” and told reporters to “stop the fake outrage,” pointing to an October 2025 origin for the full AI clip; within hours the administration shifted, blaming an unnamed staffer for the erroneous post and removing the video [5] [3] [6]. That sequence—defense, dismissal of outrage, then backtrack—was widely reported and itself became a focal point for criticism about messaging discipline and intent [5] [3].
4. Patterns and context: why this mattered beyond a single post
Journalists and analysts situated the episode in a broader pattern: Trump has previously amplified attacks on Barack Obama (including promoting the “birther” conspiracy) and has reposted AI-generated and inflammatory content before, making the latest incident less isolated than a simple repost mistake in the view of many critics [7] [5]. Supporters and the White House counter that the clip originated elsewhere online and that the president’s account often amplifies content he does not personally craft—an argument used to suggest accidental posting rather than explicit intent to dehumanize [7] [5] [1].
5. What can be stated with confidence and what remains ambiguous
It is a documented fact that a Truth Social post from the president’s account included an image of the Obamas superimposed on apes, that the post was deleted after backlash, and that the White House first defended the content and then blamed a staffer for the error [1] [2] [3]. Motive—whether the president intended to deploy a racist trope or whether the clip was a negligent repost by staff—remains contested in public statements and is not definitively settled by the reporting provided here; some outlets and commentators infer intent from pattern and past behavior, while the White House points to origin and error as explanation [2] [5] [6].