Trump deletes racist meme video of Obamas after bipartisan backlash

By Mario Parker

 

President Donald Trump deleted a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes from his social media platform after a bipartisan outcry, including from Tim Scott, the only Black Republican US senator.  

Trump reposted the clip on Thursday to his 11.7 million followers on Truth Social. It included a narrator making unsubstantiated claims that voting machines were insecure in battleground states during the 2020 election, which former President Joe Biden won.

 

In the last seconds of the video, photos appear of the former president and first lady’s faces, with their mouths agape, superimposed on the bodies of primates. They bounce back and forth against a jungle backdrop as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays. The images evoke a centuries-old racist trope about Black people.

 

The post was subsequently deleted Friday, after Scott and other Republican lawmakers urged Trump to take it down, along with Democrats and civil-rights groups. 

 

Trump told reporters late Friday that he “didn’t see the whole thing” before it was posted to his Truth Social account. The president said he had seen the first part of the video, about voter fraud, and sent it to staff. He added that “generally they look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t.” 

 

He said he had spoken to Scott subsequently, and that the senator “understood that, 100 per cent.”

 

Trump told reporters he wouldn’t apologise because he didn’t make a mistake.

 

Asked if he would condemn the racist parts of the video, Trump responded, “Of course I do.”

Rare Retreat

The decision to remove the post marked a rare retreat from the White House, and came just hours after Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended it and accused journalists who reported on it of creating “fake outrage.” 

 

“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” Leavitt said in a statement earlier Friday, urging media outlets to “report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

 

A White House official subsequently said in an emailed statement that the late-night post was erroneously published by a staffer. Another adviser, granted anonymity to disclose private discussions, said White House staffers are equally upset about the post, noting that longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino, who typically helps with the president’s social media, has been away this week celebrating his honeymoon. 

 

The post remained on the president’s feed for roughly 12 hours before it was taken down. 

 

Hours after Leavitt issued her statement, Scott posted on X imploring Trump to delete the video.

 

“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” the senator wrote.

 

Scott’s admonition of the president represented an unusual rebuke for the South Carolina lawmaker, a longtime Trump ally. In 2024, they briefly competed for the Republican presidential nomination. Scott ultimately suspended his campaign and was speculated to be a possible running mate for Trump. 

 

Scott is in charge of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm and also chairs the Banking Committee, which will consider Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh.

 

Trump’s post was also condemned by Republican Representative Mike Lawler, who called it “wrong and incredibly offensive.” Lawler, of New York, faces a competitive reelection race in November. 

Republican Senators Roger Wicker, Susan Collins and Pete Ricketts were also among those to condemn the video. 

 

The White House’s decision to blame an aide for the post drew even more scorn of Trump, 79, given he has long seized on Biden’s use of an autopen to sign presidential directives as a sign he was too old to hold the nation’s highest office. 

 

“WOW! WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP DOESN’T WRITE HIS OWN TWEETS??? AUTOPEN!” posted California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Trump antagonist who is considered a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

 

Trump has had a long history of making racially incendiary remarks, with many aimed at the Obamas. He launched his political career by peddling false claims that the ex-president wasn’t born in the US. 

 

During the 2024 contest against former Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump questioned her racial identity at a conference of Black journalists in Chicago. Harris is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants. The US president has made dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs a key pillar of his second-term domestic agenda.