Overview
- The minute-long video on Trump's Truth Social account briefly portrayed Barack and Michelle Obama as apes and was taken down around noon Friday after roughly 12 hours online.
- A White House official said a staffer posted it in error after press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially labeled it a harmless meme and dismissed criticism as fake outrage.
- Republican senators Tim Scott, Roger Wicker, and Pete Ricketts condemned the post, with Scott calling it the most racist thing he had seen from the White House and urging deletion.
- Reporting traced the three-second segment to a pro‑Trump X user known as Xerias, part of a longer clip casting Trump as a lion and pushing 2020 election conspiracy claims.
- No apology from Trump has been reported, the Obamas have not commented, and civil rights groups including the NAACP denounced the imagery as blatantly racist.