President Donald Trump condemned but did not apologise for a video on his social media account depicting Democratic former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes, a post that triggered swift, bipartisan criticism for dehumanising people of African descent.
The White House first defended the racist post on Friday, then deleted it 12 hours after it appeared.
The minute-long video shared on Trump’s Truth Social network amplified false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud.
Spliced into the video near its end was a brief, apparently AI-generated, clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas’ heads.
Trump told reporters he had not watched the entire video before a White House aide posted it to his account.
“I didn’t see the whole thing,” Trump said.
“I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud in the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is. Then I gave it to the people. Generally, they look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn’t.”
Asked by reporters if he condemned the clip, Trump said, “Of course I do.” But he declined to apologise, saying, “I didn’t make a mistake. I mean, I give – I look at a lot – thousands of things.”
Trump’s comments capped a day of competing narratives within the White House.
An administration spokesperson initially defended the video as a harmless ‘Internet meme’ before another official said it had been posted in error and was removed, marking a rare retreat for a White House typically unflinching in defending Trump.
Trump, who is in his second term, has a history of sharing racist rhetoric.
He long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Obama, the president from 2009 to 2017, was not born in the United States.
The post depicting the Obamas drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, including Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a close Trump ally who is Black.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott said on X. “The President should remove it.”
Other legislators in Trump’s Republican Party called on him to apologise and delete the post.
Mark Burns, a Black pastor and Trump ally who said he spoke to the president about the video, called for the staff member to be fired.
&uuid=(email))