US President Donald Trump has taken down a social media video that featured a racist clip portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
The clip appeared at the conclusion of a 62-second video Trump shared that promoted allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Addressing reporters on Friday, Trump said: “I didn’t make a mistake”. He explained that he had only watched the start of the video before it was uploaded by a staff member and was unaware that it included the offensive depiction of the Obamas.
Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is Black, urged the president to remove the post, condemning it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.
Initially, the White House defended the video, calling it an “internet meme video” and instructing critics to “stop the fake outrage”.
However, following intense backlash — including criticism from several Republican senators — the post was removed from Trump’s Truth Social account. A White House official later said a staff member had “erroneously” shared the video.
The clip — which echoes racist caricatures likening Black people to monkeys — appears to have originated from a post on X shared in October by conservative meme creator Xerias.
That video also portrays several prominent Democrats as animals, including New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Former President Joe Biden is likewise depicted as an ape eating a banana.
Barack and Michelle Obama have not commented on the video.
The video was among dozens uploaded to Trump’s Truth Social account overnight.
“I look at a lot of thousands of things,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on Friday, adding that after viewing only part of the video he “gave it to the people who generally, they look at the whole thing”.
He said he supported the video’s claims about voter fraud but acknowledged that if staff had reviewed it fully, “probably they would have had the sense to take it down”.
“We took it down as soon as we found out about it,” he added.
Some of the criticism came from within Trump’s own party.
Senator Scott, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, said he was “praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.
“The President should remove it,” he added.
Another Republican, New York Representative Mike Lawler, described the post as “wrong and incredibly offensive – whether intentional or a mistake”, adding that it “should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”
Criticism continued even after the video was removed.
Utah Republican Senator John Curtis wrote on social media that the video was “blatantly racist and inexcusable”.
“It should never have been posted or left published for so long,” he added.
According to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, Florida Representative Byron Donalds — a long-time Trump supporter and gubernatorial candidate — contacted the White House after the video appeared and was told it was the work of a staff member who “let the president down”.
The BBC has contacted the White House seeking clarification on how many individuals have access to the president’s account and what approval procedures are in place for posts.
In a statement earlier sent to the BBC, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the clip came 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,” she added.
Before the post was taken down, NAACP President Derrick Johnson described the video as “disgusting and utterly despicable”, accusing Trump of attempting to divert attention from the Epstein case and a “rapidly failing economy.”
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser in the Obama White House, said: “Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our country.”
In a brief statement of his own, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist”.
“Disgusting behaviour by the president,” California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office posted on X. “Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who accused Trump of racism last year after Trump shared an AI-generated image depicting Jeffries with a moustache and sombrero — responded to the latest video by calling Trump a “vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder”.
“Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry,” he added.
The Obama clip was appended to the end of a one-minute video that included claims of a voting conspiracy in Michigan during the 2020 presidential election. Those claims were later debunked as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ successful civil lawsuits against several media organisations.
Trump has a long record of criticising and attacking Obama.
Prior to his first presidential term, Trump repeatedly promoted false claims that Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to serve as president.
He later acknowledged that Obama was born in the United States.
