By Trendsetter Tribune 
A video posted to Donald Trump’s social media account portraying former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes was quietly removed Friday after drawing widespread condemnation for invoking racist imagery long used to dehumanize Black people.
The White House attempted damage control by blaming the post on an unnamed staffer. “A White House staffer erroneously made the post,” a White House official said, adding that the video had been taken down. The explanation came only hours after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the outrage as “fake,” even as criticism poured in from across the political spectrum — including from within Trump’s own party.
The now-deleted post, shared late Thursday on Trump’s Truth Social account, was a minute-long video recycling Trump’s debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Embedded within it was what appeared to be an AI-generated clip of dancing primates with the faces of Barack and Michelle Obama digitally superimposed — a visual trope deeply rooted in racist propaganda.
The reaction was swift. Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a close Trump ally and one of the most prominent Black Republicans in Congress, publicly urged the president to take it down. “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.” Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York and other GOP lawmakers echoed calls for deletion and an apology.
Before the post was removed, Leavitt attempted to reframe it as harmless satire, claiming it came from “an internet meme” that cast Trump as the “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. That explanation did little to blunt criticism, particularly given the video’s use of a song from the musical while reducing Black political figures to primates.
A spokesperson for the Obamas declined to comment.
For civil rights advocates and historians, the imagery was unmistakable. White supremacist movements have for centuries used comparisons between people of African descent and monkeys to justify violence, enslavement, and exclusion. The symbolism is neither accidental nor ambiguous.
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers,” said Ben Rhodes, a former senior Obama aide, “that future Americans will celebrate the Obamas as historic figures while studying Trump as a stain on our history.”
The episode fits a long and well-documented pattern. Trump built years of political relevance by promoting the racist “birther” conspiracy falsely claiming Obama was not born in the United States. He has repeatedly used dehumanizing language about immigrants and Black communities, referring to African nations as “shithole countries,” calling Somalis “garbage,” and previously sharing racially offensive imagery targeting House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Civil rights groups say the significance of the video lies not just in its content, but in how casually it was shared from the president’s own account.
“Donald Trump’s video is blatantly racist, disgusting, and utterly despicable,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP. “This kind of behavior has become normalized, and voters are watching. They will remember.”
That the White House initially dismissed the backlash, blamed an unnamed aide, and offered no apology underscores a broader reality of the Trump era: racism is no longer a fringe liability to be disavowed, but a recurring feature excused as humor, memes, or staff error — until public outrage forces a quiet retreat.