A video on US President Donald Trump’s social media account featuring a racist image of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys was removed after widespread condemnation, including from Republicans.
The White House first defended the post and then removed it about 12 hours after it appeared.
“A White House staffer improperly held this post,” a White House official said.
“It has been removed.”
A Trump adviser said the president had not seen the video before it was posted late Thursday and ordered it removed once he did.
Both officials declined to be named. The White House did not respond to a question about the staffer’s identity.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt had defended the post hours earlier, describing the wave of negative comments as “fake outrage.”
The one-minute video shared on Trump’s Truth Social network reinforced false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud.
At the end of the video was a short, and apparently AI-generated, clip of dancing primates with the Obamas’ heads superimposed over it.
Trump has a history of sharing racist rhetoric and has long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Obama, the president from 2009 to 2017, was not born in the United States.
At a prayer breakfast on Thursday, Trump said Obama was “very evil” and a “terrible divider of our country.”
Rare rebuke from Republicans
The post drew bipartisan criticism, including from Republican Senator Tim Scott, a close Trump ally who is black.
“I prayed it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen in this White House,” Scott said on X.
“The president should take it down.”
Other Republican politicians called on Trump to apologize and remove the post. Some Republicans have also privately contacted the White House about the video, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Before the post was deleted, Leavitt said it “came from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and the Democrats as characters from the Lion King.” Trump’s clip featured a song from the Disney musical.
A spokesman for the Obamas declined to comment.
White supremacists have portrayed people of African descent as apes for centuries as part of campaigns to dehumanize Black people.
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist minions that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” Ben Rhodes, a former Obama aide, said on X.
Civil rights advocates have said Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly bold, normalized and politically permissible.
“Donald Trump’s video is blatantly racist, disgusting and utterly despicable,” Derrick Johnson, national president of the NAACP, a civil rights organization, said in a statement.
“Voters are watching and will remember this at the ballot box.”
For the latest news from SBS News, download our app And subscribe to our newsletter.
#racist #Trump #deletes #video #social #media #depicting #Obamas #monkeys #backlash