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BREAKING NEWS: White House Initially Downplayed Trump’s Racist Obama Post Before Deleting It and Blaming Staffer
President Donald Trump has removed a video from his Truth Social account after public outcry about its racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama.
The 62-second video that Trump shared on Truth Social during a late-night posting binge on Thursday, Feb. 5, centered around his 2020 election conspiracy theories, including his commonly voiced allegation that voting machines in battleground states were tampered with.
In the final seconds of the clip, two primates, with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed on them, appear as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens plays in the background.
In a statement to PEOPLE, a White House official said, “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
The racist, dehumanizing comparison of Black people to primates has a long, dark history, and “simianization” plagued the first Black president and first lady during their time in the White House.
Trump’s post — during Black History Month — advanced the longstanding trope, provoking backlash from many politicians, including Republicans.
GOP Sen. Tim Scott, who endorsed Trump for president in 2024 after dropping out of the Republican primary race, shared his shock in a post on X on Friday, Feb. 6.
Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott wrote. “The President should remove it.”
The White House’s initial response to the post, from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, downplayed the video.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” she said in a statement to PEOPLE. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The original meme referenced by Leavitt shows Trump’s head superimposed on the body of a lion, while the faces of politicians, including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, are also shown. (Notably, however, there are no prominent monkey or ape characters in The Lion King, except for Rafiki, who is a mandrill and does not resemble the characters featured in the meme video.)
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