Has trump posted images of the obamas as apes in 2026?
Executive summary
President Trump’s verified Truth Social account posted a roughly one-minute video on Feb. 6, 2026 that includes a brief AI-like clip showing Barack and Michelle Obama with ape/monkey bodies for roughly one to two seconds, prompting widespread condemnation [1] [2] [3]. The White House defended the post as part of an “internet meme video” and said the clip originated elsewhere, while some outlets noted it is unclear whether Mr. Trump personally inserted or even knew about the Obama clip [4] [3] [5].
1. The post and the visual: what was shared
Late on Feb. 6, 2026 the president’s Truth Social account shared a 62-second video about alleged voting-machine anomalies that, in its final moments, flashes a one- to two-second clip superimposing the Obamas’ faces on dancing ape bodies set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” an insertion that multiple outlets described as apparently AI-generated and bearing an @XERIAS_X watermark [2] [1] [5] [4].
2. Immediate reactions: condemnation and context
Political figures and commentators condemned the imagery as racist and dehumanizing, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office calling the post “disgusting behavior by the President,” and former Obama aide Ben Rhodes and other Democrats denouncing the clip; mainstream outlets from The New York Times to Variety and Newsweek reported the backlash and contextualized the trope historically [3] [1] [4] [6].
3. The White House response and the question of intent
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the video as part of an internet meme originally portraying Mr. Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as animals, urging critics to “stop the fake outrage,” and at least one report noted the White House would not confirm whether Mr. Trump personally shared the post or was aware of the inserted Obama clip [3] [4] [5].
4. Provenance, watermark and prior pattern
News organizations traced the Obama ape clip to content bearing an @XERIAS_X watermark and reported it looked AI-generated; outlets also flagged that this incident fits a pattern of the president sharing hyperreal or fabricated visuals on his platforms, including prior AI-generated clips depicting Barack Obama in arrest or prison scenes [5] [7] [2].
5. What can and cannot be concluded from the available reporting
The factual record in major news coverage establishes that President Trump’s Truth Social account posted a video on Feb. 6, 2026 that contained the ape imagery of the Obamas and that the post generated immediate public and political outcry [1] [2] [3]. Reporting also documents the clip’s watermark, its brief duration, and the White House framing that it was a meme clip, while multiple outlets report uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump himself uploaded the specific edited segment or knew it was included—an important caveat that the available sources explicitly record [5] [3].
6. Stakes and subtext: why this matters
Journalists and critics emphasized that depicting the nation’s first Black president and first lady as apes invokes a long history of racist dehumanization, amplifying the political and cultural stakes beyond a crude meme; outlets framed the post as part of ongoing debates about AI-manipulated political content, presidential responsibility for material shared on official accounts, and the erosion of norms about public speech by officeholders [1] [4] [2].