Donald Trump has privately lashed out at two Republican senators who condemned a racist video posted to the president’s Truth Social account last week depicting the Obamas as apes, according to a new report.
A video showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto the bodies of dancing primates to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” has received sharp backlash across the political aisle.
Even some of Trump’s supporters in Congress rebuked the video, which the White House claims a staffer “erroneously” posted on February 5. The clip was taken down several hours after it was shared.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, wrote on X in response.
Trump then complained to allies while at Mar-a-Lago last weekend about Scott, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
“The president felt he could’ve handled that matter privately,” a senior Trump administration official told the outlet.
The official added: “He was like, ‘We work together all the time. He didn’t need to comment publicly.’”
Senator Katie Britt from Alabama also denounced the racist video, writing on X last Friday, “This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation.”
One CNN source said Trump slammed Britt, throwing out expletives, and said she was dead to him.
Britt’s office called CNN’s reporting “fake news” and defended her relationship with the president.
“Senator Britt has a 100% voting record with President Trump and remains one of his strongest allies in the Senate,” her office told the outlet. “Any narrative suggesting otherwise is not only misleading, it is flat out false.”
The White House boasted about Trump’s “great respect” for “incredible ally” Britt, per CNN.
The Independent has reached out to the White House and the offices of Scott and Britt.
Trump has refused to apologize for the racist video, telling reporters on Air Force One on his way to Palm Beach, Florida, last Friday, “I didn’t make a mistake.” The president insisted he only saw the first part of the video about “voter fraud,” and not the end that depicted the Obamas as apes.
The start of the video promoted false claims that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of voter fraud.
“It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud,” Trump told reporters last Friday, adding that no one on his team knew the clip depicting the Obamas as apes was at the end. The president said if his staff had looked, they “probably would’ve had the sense to take it down.”
Trump said that he spoke with Scott, telling reporters, “Tim is a great guy. He understood that a hundred percent.”
The president told reporters Thursday that the staffer the White House claims mistakenly posted the video has not been fired.
