President Donald Trump has deleted a post from his Truth Social platform after a video he shared drew widespread condemnation for briefly depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed on monkeys.
The one-minute video, posted late Thursday night, revived false claims that Dominion Voting Systems manipulated the 2020 presidential election. In the closing seconds of the clip, the Obamas appeared for about a second in the altered imagery while the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight played in the background.
The post sparked outrage across the United States on Friday, with Democrats and several Republicans criticising the imagery as racist and inappropriate for a sitting president.
Initially, the White House brushed aside the backlash. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the video as an “internet meme” that portrayed Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from The Lion King, urging critics to “stop the fake outrage.”
But about 12 hours after the post went live, a White House official told AFP that it had been removed, attributing the upload to a mistake by a staff member.
The Obamas did not immediately respond to the incident.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned the post, calling it “disgusting bigotry,” while California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said the president’s action was “disgusting behaviour” that demanded condemnation from Republican leaders.
Ben Rhodes, a former adviser to Obama, said history would remember the Obamas as “beloved figures” while Trump would be viewed as “a stain on our history.”
Criticism also emerged from within Trump’s party. Senator Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, described the video as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” and Senator Roger Wicker said it was “totally unacceptable,” urging the president to apologise.
The controversy renewed attention on Trump’s use of provocative and digitally manipulated content on social media. In previous posts, he has shared AI-generated videos showing Obama being arrested and images portraying Jeffries in racially stereotyped attire.
Trump has long faced accusations of stoking racial tensions, dating back to his promotion of the false “birther” conspiracy theory questioning Obama’s citizenship.
The episode comes as the administration continues to face criticism over its rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across federal institutions, policies that originated from the civil rights movement aimed at tackling systemic discrimination.
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