Chicago – February 06, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing intense backlash after the White House first defended and then deleted a racist social media post depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
The minute-long video, shared from Trump’s Truth Social account late Thursday, promoted false claims that voting machines stole the 2020 election and briefly showed AI-generated dancing primates with the Obamas’ faces superimposed, reviving racist tropes historically used to dehumanize Black people. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially dismissed criticism as “fake outrage,” saying the clip came from an “internet meme” portraying Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from “The Lion King.”
The post drew rare bipartisan condemnation, including from Republican Senator Tim Scott, who called it the most racist content he had seen from the Trump White House and urged the president to remove it. Hours later, officials said a staffer had “erroneously” made the post and confirmed it had been taken down.
