Trump video showing Obamas as monkeys sparks outrage over 'vile' racist depiction
President Donald Trump posted an election conspiracy video depicting former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys, drawing condemnations over the racist portrayal of America's first and only Black president. The White House on Friday initially dismissed the criticism as "fake outrage" before deleting the post and claiming the video had been “erroneously” made by a staffer.
Issued on: 06/02/2026
By: FRANCE 24
US President Donald Trump on Thursday posted an election conspiracy video that depicted former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys, drawing condemnation from prominent Democrats.
Near the end of a one-minute-long video posted on Trump's Truth Social platform, the Obamas are shown with their faces on the bodies of monkeys for about one second.
The song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" plays in the background when the Obamas appear.
The video repeats false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.
As of early Friday morning, the video had been liked several thousand times on the president's social media platform.
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and a prominent Trump critic, slammed the post.
"Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now," Newsom's press office account posted on X.
House Democrati leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday branded Trump's video as "vile, unhinged and malignant".
In a post on X, Jeffries said, "Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump's disgusting bigotry," calling Trump a "sick individual."
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security advisor and close confidant to Barack Obama, also condemned the imagery.
"Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history," he wrote on X.
'Fake outrage'
The White House however initially dismissed the condemnations as "fake outrage".
"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," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to AFP.
But hours later, the White House said a staff member had "erroneously" made the Obama post, which was then deleted.
"A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down," a White House official told AFP.
Obama is the only Black president in American history and backed Trump's opponent Kamala Harris on the campaign trail in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump has a long history of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric.
When Obama was in the White House, Trump advanced the false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya and was constitutionally ineligible to serve.
Obama eventually released his Hawaii records. Trump finally acknowledged during his 2016 campaign, after having won the Republican nomination, that Obama was born in Hawaii.
AI imagery
In the first year of his second term in the White House, Trump ramped up his use of hyper-realistic but fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.
He has used the provocative posts to rally his conservative base.
Last year, Trump posted a video generated by artificial intelligence showing Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
Later, he posted an AI clip of Jeffries – who is Black – wearing a fake moustache and a sombrero.
Jeffries called the image racist.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has drawn criticism from his opponents for leading a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.
One of Trump's first acts was to terminate all federal government DEI programmes, including related policies in the military.
The drive to rid the armed forces of what Trump has derided as "woke" initiatives has also seen the removal from some military academy bookshelves of scores of books that cover the US's history of discrimination.
US federal anti-discrimination programs were born of the 1960s civil rights struggle, mainly led by Black Americans, for equality and justice after hundreds of years of slavery, whose abolition in 1865 saw other institutional forms of racism enforced.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
'I didn't make a mistake': Trump refuses to apologise for since-deleted racist post about Obamas
A social media post by US President Donald Trump depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle. It was deleted on Friday after a backlash from both Republicans and Democrats.
US President Donald Trump refused to apologise on Friday for a racist video he posted on his social media platform Truth Social, which depicted the former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as primates.
Following widespread backlash for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady, the post was blamed on a staffer and deleted.
Near the end of the one-minute-long video promoting conspiracies about Republican Trump's 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, the Obamas were shown with their faces on the bodies of apes for about one second.
The video repeated false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the election from Trump.
The frames of the Obamas at the end of the clip originated from a separate video, previously circulated by an influential conservative meme maker. It shows a lion Trump as “King of the Jungle” and depicts Democratic leaders as other animals.
A rare admission of a misstep by the White House, the deletion came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed “fake outrage” over the post. After calls for its removal — including by Republicans — the White House said a staffer had posted the video erroneously.
"I didn't make a mistake," Trump said on Air Force One late Friday when asked if he would apologise for the post.
"I just looked at the first part... and I didn't see the whole thing," Trump said, adding that he "gave it" to staffers to post and they also didn't watch the full video.
Asked if he condemns the racist imagery in the video, Trump replied: "Of course I do."
Former vice president Kamala Harris called out the White House's backpedaling in a post on X on Friday.
"No one believes this cover up from the White House, especially since they originally defended this post," she wrote.
"We are all clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and what he believes."
There is a long history in the US of powerful white figures associating Black people with animals, including apes, in demonstrably false, racist ways. The practice dates to 18th century cultural racism and pseudo-scientific theories used to justify the enslavement of Black people, and later to dehumanise freed Black people as uncivilised threats to white people.
When Obama was in the White House, Trump pushed false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya and constitutionally ineligible to serve. Trump had demanded that Obama prove he was a “natural-born citizen” as required to become president.
The White House explanation also raises questions about control of Trump’s social media account, which he's used to levy import taxes, threaten military action, make other announcements and intimidate political rivals. The president often signs his name or initials after policy posts.
The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry about how posts are vetted and when the public can know when Trump himself is posting.
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