Trump's Racist Video Featuring Obamas as Apes Draws Bipartisan Fury
Fury erupted across the political spectrum on Friday after former US President Donald Trump posted a racist video on his Truth Social account that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. The 79-year-old Republican shared the clip during one of his increasingly frequent late-night posting sprees, sparking immediate outrage from both Democrats and Republicans.
Disturbing Imagery in Election Conspiracy Video
The offensive content appears briefly at the end of a minute-long video that amplifies Trump's persistent but false claim that he won the 2020 election. In reality, he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The video shows the laughing faces of America's first Black president and his wife superimposed on the bodies of primates in a jungle setting, bobbing to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
The conspiracy-theory video is a repost of content stamped with the logo of Patriot News Outlet, a website supportive of Trump. By 8.30am ET on Friday, the post had attracted approximately 4,000 likes but also garnered widespread condemnation for including such a blatant racist trope about the prominent Democratic couple.
Swift Bipartisan Condemnation
The press office of Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom was among the first to condemn the post on X, stating: "Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now."
Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration and now a podcaster, accused Trump of overt racism. "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," he wrote.
Republicans Against Trump, an alliance of party members disillusioned with the Trump administration, posted about the incident just thirty minutes after Trump's midnight posting. The group, which has more than a million followers on X, featured the offensive frame with the comment: "BREAKING: Trump just posted a video on Truth Social that includes a racist image of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys. There's no bottom."
Historical Context and White House Response
Democratic political strategist Adam Parkhomenko alluded to longstanding allegations about Trump's behavior, including a 2024 claim that he used a racial slur while hosting The Apprentice. "This is overt racism. Full stop," Parkhomenko declared. "There's no 'misinterpretation' and no excuse. This is who he is, who he's always been, and why he should never be anywhere near power again."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to downplay the controversy in a statement to the Guardian. She linked to an October post from a separate rightwing account featuring a 55-second video from which the Obama clip appears to have been taken. The complete video depicts Trump as a male lion while showing Biden's head superimposed on a monkey body and other prominent Democrats as various animals.
"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public," Leavitt stated.
Broader Election Conspiracy Context
Friday's post that concludes with the unexplained Obama flash clip primarily focuses on disproven claims about Dominion Voting Systems. The video falsely alleges that the ballot-counting company helped steal the 2020 presidential election from Trump using doctored vote-counting machines.
This controversy follows Dominion Voting Systems' landmark defamation lawsuit settlement with Fox News in April 2023, where the network agreed to pay $787.5 million. The incident highlights how election conspiracy theories continue to circulate in certain political circles despite being thoroughly debunked.
The racist depiction of the Obamas represents a particularly egregious example of how political discourse has deteriorated, with prominent figures now facing bipartisan criticism for amplifying such offensive content. The incident has reignited debates about racial sensitivity in American politics and the responsibility of political leaders to maintain basic standards of decency in public discourse.
