US President Donald Trump’s social media post that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as primates in a jungle was removed Friday after widespread criticism from both Republicans and Democrats who called the clip offensive.
Later Friday, Trump said he would not apologise. “I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.
The White House said a staffer had posted the video by mistake after a barrage of criticism — including from civil rights leaders and veteran Republican senators — over its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt had earlier dismissed calls of outrage as “fake outrage.” The post was deleted hours after those denials and after public demands for its removal.
The clip was part of a series of overnight posts on Trump’s Truth Social account that pushed his false claims the 2020 election was stolen, despite courts and his former attorney general finding no evidence of systemic fraud.
Trump has a documented history of personal attacks on the Obamas and has used incendiary and sometimes racist language in the past, from promoting the birther lie about Obama’s birthplace to derogatory remarks about majority-Black countries. An Obama spokeswoman said the former president had no response.
The 62-second clip largely appears to be taken from a conservative video alleging tampering with voting machines during the 2020 count. Near the end, at roughly the 60-second mark, two jungle primates appear briefly with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed over them. Those frames came from a separate video circulated by an influential conservative meme creator that portrays Trump as “King of the Jungle” and depicts Democratic leaders as animals — including Joe Biden depicted as a primate eating a banana.
Leavitt called the source “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King.” The 1994 Disney film she referenced is set on the savannah, not in a jungle, and does not include great apes. Leavitt urged media to “stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
By midday, the post had been taken down and responsibility was placed on a subordinate staffer. The episode raised questions about who controls Trump’s social media accounts — which he has used to announce policy, threaten actions, and levy attacks — and how posts are vetted to show whether the president himself authored them. The White House did not immediately explain the vetting process or how the public can know when Trump personally posts.
Prominent Trump supporter and pastor Mark Burns said on X that he had spoken “directly” with Trump and recommended the president fire the staffer who uploaded the video and publicly condemn the action. “He knows this is wrong, offensive, and unacceptable,” Burns wrote.
But many dismissed the staffer explanation. Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said she did not accept the White House account and blamed a “toxic and racist climate within the White House,” adding that Trump “is a racist, he’s a bigot, and he will continue to do things in his presidency to make that known.”
Condemnation came from across the political spectrum and included calls for an apology that had not been issued by late afternoon. At a Black History Month market in Harlem, vendor Jacklyn Monk called the post embarrassing and said Trump “needs help” for representing the country in that way. In Atlanta, Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., invoked her father’s words — “Yes. I’m Black. I’m proud of it. I’m Black and beautiful” — and said Black Americans “are not apes.”
Some Republicans also criticized the post. Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, urged its removal and said he hoped it was fake because it was “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi called the post “totally unacceptable” and said the president should apologise. Several Republicans facing difficult re-election bids expressed concern, creating an unusual wave of intra-party criticism of a president who has sometimes silenced critics within his party.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the video “utterly despicable” and suggested broader political motives, saying Trump was trying to distract from economic concerns and attention on other matters. Johnson contrasted Trump with Obama, noting who is mentioned in certain news files and who improved the economy as president.
The episode tapped into a long, painful history in the United States of equating Black people with animals, especially apes — a trope used to justify slavery and later to dehumanise Black people. The practice dates back centuries and has appeared in pseudo-scientific racial theories and cultural expressions. Historical figures, including Thomas Jefferson, wrote racist comparisons, and other leaders have used demeaning language around race during debates over civil rights.
Obama himself was targeted in the past with monkey or primate imagery and was the subject of birther conspiracy theories alleging he was not born in the United States. Trump promoted those false claims for years before acknowledging Obama’s Hawaiian birth once he had secured the 2016 Republican nomination and later shifting blame for originating the attacks.
Critics pointed to other patterns in Trump’s rhetoric — language about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the country and past derogatory references to majority-Black nations — as evidence of a longstanding propensity for incendiary, racially charged statements. During his first term, Trump reportedly used the phrase “shithole countries” to describe some developing nations; he initially denied the remark but later acknowledged it.
The deleted post intensified scrutiny of the administration’s communications practices and of Trump’s continued use of provocative social posts as a central tool of his public messaging.
