Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative commentator and MAGA ally of Indian origin, caused a stir when he called a recently shared AI video of former US President Barack Obama and former US President Michelle Obama dressed as monkeys “funny and harmless.” Social media outlets accused him of hypocrisy, noting that he had previously condemned racist comments against Indian Americans within the US Republican movement.
The video, shared by US President Donald Trump on Truth Social, included a 62-second clip of the Obamas depicted as monkeys. Other prominent Democrats have also been depicted as animals, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. The video was criticized across party lines as racist.President Trump said he “didn’t see” the part of the video that showed the Obamas, insisting he only saw the beginning before his staff posted it. “There was no mistake,” he told reporters. The post was later deleted after receiving backlash from both Democrats and Republicans.Mr. Souza, himself an Indian-born ally of Mr. Trump, responded by downplaying the racist content. “In context, this is funny and harmless. We are not going to fall for another racial hoax from the left,” he wrote in a post for X magazine. Looking online, Dinesh remembered that he was just speaking out against anti-Indian hatred in the United States, but now he finds racism against black people, in this case the Obamas, “funny.”D’Souza said he was shocked last year to encounter racist and anti-Indian comments from some supporters of the American right. He said, “The right has never made a statement like this before. So who on our side justified this kind of despicable degradation?” He called the abusive messages directed at him and other Indian Americans degrading and said he had never seen such hatred in his 40-year career.Republican Sen. Tim Scott called the video shared by President Trump “the most racist thing I’ve ever seen in this White House.” White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt initially defended it as an “internet meme video” and told critics to “stop the false outrage.”
