President Donald Trump shared a video portraying the Obamas as apes, triggering swift condemnation and claims of blatant racism — including from several Republican lawmakers.
The video, shared on Truth Social last night, showed Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto apes in a jungle, swaying side to side and smiling as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played in the background. The clip was overlaid by a watermark from X user @XERIAS_X, a Trump-supporting meme account with 46,000 followers.
On Friday morning, a White House official told The Independent that a staffer — not the president — had “erroneously made the post.” It has since been deleted from his Truth Social page.
Earlier in the day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the clip as harmless.
In a statement provided to The Independent, she said: “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.”
The clip, which was up for 12 hours, was met with disgust by numerous politicians, television hosts and other high-profile figures.
Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and close ally of Trump’s, was one of a number of GOP officials to accuse the president of crossing the line.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott wrote on X. “The President should remove it.”
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican — whose district voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — also slammed the president.
“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered,” he wrote on social media.
GOP criticism has grown over the course of the day with additional denunciations pouring in from high-ranking officials.
In a post on X, Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, called the video “totally unacceptable” and requested that the president apologize. Meanwhile, Senator Pete Ricketts, a Nebraska Republican, wrote: “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this.”
“I do not feel the need to respond to every inflammatory statement made by the White House,” Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, wrote on X on Friday afternoon. “However, the release of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”
The most scathing remarks, though, came from Democrats — some of whom said they were not at all surprised by the president’s post.
“Donald Trump had the racist, bigoted audacity to post an AI-generated video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, wrote on X. “While his behavior is not shocking, it is certainly disgusting and disturbing.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the video as “Racist, “Vile” and “Abhorrent,” while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responded by labeling Trump an “unhinged and malignant bottom feeder.”
“He should be ashamed of himself, if he were capable of shame,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “Taking it down is not enough. The White House must apologize for this beyond disgusting behavior.”
A number of Democrats questioned whether their Republican colleagues would have the “moral courage” to condemn the post. While many GOP officials did indeed call out the president, at least one sidestepped questions about it.
When asked about the clip on CNN, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, a Florida Republican, said he had not watched it.
“Well, I’ve not seen that video to you, just showed it to me,” he said. When pressed on the matter, he said: “Well, I’ll take a look at it right after our show…You kind of threw it at me right here.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have not issued statements about the president’s post.
On Friday morning, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough criticized GOP officials for failing to denounce the video en masse. “All you’re doing is making yourself look pathetic – Republicans – for not standing up to this open racism and bigotry,” he said. CNN anchor Jake Tapper also derided the post as “vile & racist.”
Although the White House has an extensive digital communications team that manages the administration’s official social media accounts on X and other platforms, access to Trump’s own Truth Social account is limited to the president himself plus a tight circle of close aides.
Trump has long been known to do much of his own posting dating back to his early years on Twitter, when he would opine on just about any subject and wasn’t shy about mixing it up with rank-and-file platform users.
During his early years as a candidate and his first term as president, much of his online activity was managed by Daniel Scavino, a longtime confidant of the president who has worked for him in one capacity or another since he was a teenage golf caddy at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey club.
Scavino, who returned to the White House with Trump last year with the rank of Assistant to the President and Deputy White House Chief of Staff, is understood to still be one of those few aides trusted with access to Trump’s personal social media megaphone.
But with the 50-year-old taking on a broader range of responsibilities in Trump’s second term — including running the White House Personnel Office, The Independent understands that the task of managing the president’s Truth Social output on a day-to-day basis often rests on the shoulders of Natalie Harp, an ex-One America News Network personality who serves as a personal assistant to Trump and works just outside the Oval Office.
The Independent further understands that Harp is often the person to whom Trump dictates the text of Truth Social posts — when he is not posting himself. The scope of her involvement in the post is unknown, however, and she has not been accused of making it. Harp did not respond to an emailed enquiry from The Independent.
A former White House and campaign staffer from Trump’s first term told The Independent that the president’s late-night posting-and-reposting sprees were often his own doing.
Trump has a long history of attacking the Obamas, often using incendiary rhetoric, which has drawn accusations of racism.
Prior to his entry into politics, Trump repeatedly promoted the unsubstantiated claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, demanding he show the public his birth certificate. In 2011, Obama released his long-form birth certificate proving he’d been born in Hawaii. During a news conference, he decried Trump as a “carnival barker.”
Trump finally acknowledged that the former Democratic president was born in the United States shortly before the 2016 election.
