Trump posted video with Obamas as monkeys
Executive summary
President Donald Trump reposted a roughly one-minute video on his Truth Social account that, near its end, briefly showed former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on dancing primates; the post was removed after bipartisan outrage and condemnation [1] [2]. The clip appears to have been taken from a longer meme video circulated last October by an X account watermarking the footage, and the White House first defended the post as an “internet meme” before saying a staffer had mistakenly uploaded it and taking it down [3] [4] [5].
1. What was posted and how it appeared
The Truth Social video promoted conspiratorial claims about the 2020 election and ran about 62 seconds; at roughly the 59–60 second mark a two-second scene shows animated primates with the Obamas’ faces, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a frame that many outlets described as recalling racist caricatures comparing Black people to monkeys [6] [7] [8]. Multiple outlets reported that the dancing-primates segment carried a watermark tied to a conservative meme account and matched a 55‑second “King of the Jungle” clip previously circulated on X that depicted Trump as a lion and other Democrats as animals [9] [1] [3].
2. How the White House reacted, then reversed
After initial outrage, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the repost as coming “from an internet meme video” and urged critics to “stop the fake outrage,” sharing the earlier X post as context [3] [6]. Within hours, however, the video was taken down and the White House attributed the post to an erroneous staffer action, saying the president had not seen the clip before it went live [1] [5].
3. Political fallout and bipartisan condemnation
The image drew widespread condemnation across the political spectrum; Democrats called it racist and demanded denunciation, while some Republicans — including Senator Tim Scott — publicly criticized the post as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” prompting calls for an apology and immediate deletion [8] [10] [9]. Prominent Democratic voices and former Obama aides likewise framed the post as a dehumanizing trope with deep historical roots, and several outlets placed the incident in a larger pattern of racially charged content shared by the president [2] [4] [11].
4. Origins, intent and technical notes reported
News organizations reported that the primate clip appears to be AI‑generated or heavily edited and was spliced into the conspiracy-focused video near its end, rather than created originally for the Truth Social post; the clip carried a visible watermark linking it to the October meme, which suggests reposting rather than original production by the president himself [4] [1] [9]. Reporting stopped short of independently proving who intended the inclusion or whether Mr. Trump personally reviewed the final upload, and the White House’s explanation that it was an accidental staff post was reported but not independently verified by the outlets cited here [5] [1].
5. Context and competing narratives
Supporters and the White House framed the footage as benign internet meme content or a distraction from other issues, while critics framed it as deliberate dehumanization tapping into racist tropes with a long history in U.S. culture; news outlets noted both the clip’s provenance on right‑wing meme networks and the White House’s initial defense before deletion, leaving unresolved questions about editorial control and intent [3] [12] [4]. Several reports also linked the episode to a pattern of the president amplifying manipulated or false content online, noting prior incidents involving AI images and conspiracy claims, which critics say makes claimed accidental posting less persuasive [4] [7].