President Donald Trump sparked national backlash after posting a video on his Truth Social depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The post, shared during Black History Month, showed a racist animation depicting the Obamas as primates in a jungle to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
The 62-second clip was one of a string of Truth Social posts promoting claims that the 2020 election was stolen—an argument previously debunked. The video originated on YouTube and frames Trump as “the king of the jungle” with Democratic leaders as animals. Lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, as well as the general public, have labeled the video as racist.
South Carolina Republican Senator and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Tim Scott, in a call with Trump, urged him to delete the post.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” said Scott. “The president should remove it.”
The White House initially defended the video, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling the public to stop the “fake outrage.” She argued that the video simply showed the Obamas as characters from The Lion King.
The White House quickly backtracked, however, deleting the post 12 hours after it aired, claiming the video was a mistake by a Trump staffer. Trump condemned the video’s racism when asked in a press conference, but refused to apologize for posting it, claiming that he’d missed the end of the video portraying the Obamas as primates.
“It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud,” Trump told reporters. “Nobody knew that that was in the end. If they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”
Deborah Bada, a freshman honors political science major with a double minor in legal communications and women and gender studies, expressed skepticism over Trump’s explanation.
“He knew what he was doing, and he just didn’t expect the backlash,” said Bada. “I don’t think this was enough of an apology, especially because of the history that America has with the way they treated the Obamas.”
Obama is no stranger to hostile, often racialized attacks from Trump himself. Trump played a central role in perpetuating the infamous “birther movement,” which erroneously claimed that Obama was born in Kenya rather than the U.S., and thus, couldn’t legally hold the office of president. Starting in 2011, Trump urged Obama to release his birth certificate and then accused him of forging it when he did.
Further, the president expressed doubt at the validity of Obama’s Ivy League degrees, at one point offering to donate $5 million to charity if he released his college records and applications.
“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible,” Trump said in an April 2011 interview. “How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it; I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”
For some students, Trump’s repeated attempts to undermine Obama’s intelligence, legitimacy and qualifications reflect a broader continuation of a political climate that justifies racial attacks.
“This didn’t change how I see him,” said Bada. “I don’t see Trump as a person that should be in office. I see him as a celebrity that’s looking for attention and ruining our country.”
Copy edited by Kennedi Bryant
