A video shared on United States President Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes was deleted on Friday, following criticism that Trump’s post evoked racist imagery long used to dehumanise people of African descent.
“A White House staffer erroneously made the post,” said a White House official, who declined to be named. “It has been taken down.”
The statement came hours after White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt described as “fake outrage” a wave of negative reactions to the video, including from several prominent Republican lawmakers.
Late on Thursday, Trump shared a minute-long video amplifying the Republican US president’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud. Spliced into the video was an apparently AI-generated clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas’ heads.
The post on Trump’s Truth Social network drew swift criticism from prominent political figures, including Republican Senator Tim Scott, a Trump ally who is Black.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott said on X. “The president should remove it.”
Republican Representative Mike Lawler of New York was among several other prominent political figures who said Trump should apologise and delete the post.
Prior to the post being deleted, Leavitt said it was “from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King”. Trump’s clip included a song from that musical.
A spokesperson for the Obamas declined to comment.
White supremacists have for centuries depicted people of African ancestry as monkeys as part of campaigns to dehumanise and dominate Black populations.
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” said Ben Rhodes, a former Obama aide, on X.
Trump has a history of sharing racist rhetoric and long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. In December, Trump described Somalis as “garbage” who should be thrown out of the country.
He has referred to that and other developing nations as “shithole countries.” He was also criticised last year for depicting House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is Black, with a superimposed handlebar moustache and a sombrero.
Civil rights advocates have said Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly bold, normalised, and politically permissible.
“Donald Trump’s video is blatantly racist, disgusting, and utterly despicable,” said Derrick Johnson, national president of the NAACP, a civil rights group, in an emailed statement. “Voters are watching and will remember this at the ballot box.”
