Following strong backlash against a racist video of the Obamas posted on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account, the video was deleted.
White House officials said. variety It was deleted because a staff member posted it by mistake. The video, which shows Michelle and Barack Obama’s heads superimposed on the bodies of monkeys dancing to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in the jungle, was posted on Trump’s “Truth Social” page for nearly 12 hours.
The video’s removal came just hours after White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt defended Trump’s post as just an “Internet meme.”
“This is from an internet meme video that portrays President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” Levitt previously said. “Stop these false outrages and start reporting on the things that actually matter to the American people today.”
The original video on which Obama’s animation was based depicted Trump as a lion, the White House cited. Barack and Michelle Obama were depicted as laughing, dancing monkeys. Other Democrats in the video include Joe Biden as a baboon, Kamala Harris as a turtle, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a zebra, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a meerkat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a donkey, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani as a hyena, and Hillary Clinton as a warthog.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s X newsroom called the video posting of the Obamas like monkeys a “disgusting act by the president” and called on “all Republicans to condemn it.”
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“I hope it’s fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen in this White House. The President should take it down,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the only Black Republican in the Senate, wrote in a post Friday morning.
From US Variety
