US President Trump Shares Controversial Video Harkening Back to Racist Stereotypes

US President Donald Trump shared a video on social media depicting Democratic former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes, invoking racist imagery long used to dehumanize people of African descent. The post has been liked several thousand times on the president’s platform.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the tweet by stating it was from an internet meme video portraying Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. She urged readers to focus on “something that actually matters” instead.

However, top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, criticized Trump harshly, calling him a “vile, unhinged, and malignant individual.” He demanded that every single Republican denounce this disgusting bigotry, adding that it should haunt Trump for all future Americans to study the stains on our history.

Republican Senator Tim Scott echoed Jeffries’ criticism. He tweeted: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Scott further added that the President should remove the post and apologize. Similarly, Representative Mike Lawler from New York called for Trump to do so as well.

The video sparked swift criticism from prominent political figures who acknowledged Trump’s history of sharing racially charged rhetoric, including his promotion of the false conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the United States. Last year, he had posted a similar AI-generated video showing Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and behind bars.

Ben Rhodes, a former Obama aide, criticized Trump’s tweet: “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 history.”

The post drew swift criticism from prominent political figures who acknowledged Trump’s history of sharing racially charged rhetoric. The video has also been compared to historical depictions of African-descended people as apes, used by white supremacists for decades as part of campaigns aimed at dehumanizing and dominating Black populations.

Obama is the only Black president in American history and backed Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris on the campaign trail in the 2024 presidential election. Billionaire Trump launched his own political career by pushing the racist and false “birther” conspiracy theory that his Democratic predecessor was lying about being born in the United States.

The Office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and staunch Trump critic, criticized the behavior. Since returning to the White House, Trump has been criticized for leading a crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which were initially established as part of federal anti-discrimination programmes in the 1960s civil rights struggle.

US federal anti-discrimination programs were born out of the civil rights movement led by Black Americans. The abolition of slavery in 1865 did not end racism; instead, it created new institutional forms of racial discrimination enforced through these programs.