President Donald Trump refused on Friday to apologize for a video posted on his social media account showing former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys, though he said he condemned the clip while shifting blame to White House staff.
The video, shared late Thursday on Trump’s Truth Social account, drew criticism across the US political spectrum. The White House initially dismissed the uproar as “fake outrage” before acknowledging that the post had been made in error by a staff member.
“I didn’t make a mistake,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked if he would apologize. Asked whether he condemned the racist imagery, he replied, “Of course I do.”
The clip, which lasts about a minute and promotes false claims that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 election from Trump, briefly shows the Obamas’ faces on the bodies of monkeys. Democrats denounced the video as “vile,” while Republican Senator Tim Scott, the only Black senator in the GOP, described it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the post, saying the images were “from an Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King” and urging media outlets to “report on something today that actually matters to the American public.” About twelve hours later, the administration backtracked, stating that a staffer had erroneously made the post and it had been removed.
Trump told reporters he had not seen the entire video before it was uploaded. “I just looked at the first part… and I didn’t see the whole thing,” he said. “I gave it to staffers to post and they also didn’t watch the full video.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized the White House’s handling of the situation on X, saying, “No one believes this cover up from the White House, especially since they originally defended this post. We are all clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and what he believes.”
Other Republican senators joined Scott in condemning the clip. Senator Roger Wicker said the post was “totally unacceptable” and urged Trump to remove it and apologize. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described the video as “vile, unhinged and malignant” and called on Republicans to denounce what he called Trump’s “disgusting bigotry.”
Trump has a long history of promoting racially charged conspiracy theories, including the false “birther” claims about Obama’s birthplace, and has often used AI-generated videos on Truth Social to glorify himself and attack political opponents. Similar videos targeting Jeffries and other Democrats have drawn complaints of racism.
The controversy highlights ongoing tensions over race and political rhetoric in the United States, with Trump’s use of digital media continuing to provoke widespread condemnation from both parties.
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