Trump Posted a Video of Barack and Michelle Obama as Monkeys

1. What happened and where: the post, the platform, the clip

The president shared a roughly 60‑second clip on his Truth Social account late Thursday that advances false allegations about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 election, and at about the 59‑second mark the video inserts a roughly one‑to‑two‑second AI‑generated segment showing the Obamas’ faces on ape bodies with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as audio, a snippet that has been widely circulated and documented by multiple outlets ^{[1] [3] [4]}.

2. Who reacted and how: swift condemnation from Democrats and critics

The post drew instant denunciations from prominent Democrats and public figures, including statements from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office calling the imagery “disgusting” and public comments from former Obama aides such as Ben Rhodes condemning the clip as racist, with news organizations recording broad bipartisan concern among opponents and some independent observers ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

3. The provenance of the image and the role of AI in the clip

News reports identify the monkey footage as an AI‑generated or heavily edited image superimposing the Obamas’ faces onto monkeys; outlets note the video carried a watermark linking back to a Trump‑supporting X account and that Trump’s feed has previously posted fabricated or AI‑altered visuals, including an earlier AI clip purporting to show Barack Obama under arrest, indicating a pattern of using synthetic media in political messaging ^{[1] [6] [8]}.

4. The political context: ties to election conspiracies and broader messaging

The clip does not stand alone: it is embedded in a video repeating long‑discredited claims about ballot‑counting machines and the 2020 result, part of a broader messaging campaign critics say aims to delegitimize past outcomes while amplifying provocative visual attacks on political opponents ^{[1] [9] [3]}.

5. Public reach and platform dynamics

As reported, the post gathered thousands of interactions on Truth Social within hours, and outlets documented screenshots and re‑posts across other platforms, illustrating how content posted on the president’s own social network can rapidly seed wider attention even when the imagery is brief and confined to a few seconds ^{[2] [4] [7]}.

6. Competing narratives and what reporting does not establish

While reporting uniformly documents that the clip was posted from Trump’s account and that the Obamas were depicted as monkeys, none of the cited sources provide an on‑record statement from the president explaining his intent in sharing this specific video, nor do they contain a comprehensive catalog of internal White House deliberations or any formal Republican leadership response beyond calls for denunciation reported by critics; those evidentiary gaps remain unfilled in the current coverage ^{[1] [2] [5]}.

7. Why it matters: racism, norms and the weaponization of synthetic imagery

Journalists and commentators emphasize the historical weight of depicting Black public figures as primates—an act with deeply racist connotations—and combine that with concern about how AI‑generated visuals lower the barrier for creating inflammatory political content; analysts quoted in the coverage frame the episode as both a racial affront and a warning about the normalization of synthetic attacks in political discourse ^{[7] [3] [8]}.

8. Bottom line

Multiple independent outlets confirm that Donald Trump posted a Truth Social video that briefly depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, embedded in a clip promoting debunked election claims; the depiction was widely condemned as racist, the image appears to be AI‑generated, and reporters note that the president has a pattern of sharing synthetic or fabricated imagery—while the president’s stated intent in posting the clip is not documented in these reports ^{[1] [2] [6]}.