White House blames staffer for Trump’s Obama ‘apes’ post and removes video Republican labeled ‘racist’
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 morning with additional denunciations from high-ranking officials.
In a post on X, Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican called the video “totally unacceptable” and requesting 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.”
The most scathing remarks, though, came from Democrats — some of whom said they were not at all surprised by the president’s behavior.
“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.”
