Trump Shares Post Depicting Obamas as Apes - Newsweek
By: Kate Plummer and Shane Croucher Share (Newsweek)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Kate Plummer and Shane CroucherShareNewsweek is a Trust Project member
A video posted by President Donald Trump's Truth Social account contained a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
At the end of the 62-second video—otherwise about voting machines—the Obamas' faces appear on apes' bodies for about 1 second as The Tokens' song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" plays.
The video was posted to the account shortly before midnight ET.
The edited image of the Obamas, both Democrats, carries a watermark @XERIAS_X, which corresponds with a Trump-supporting X account with about 46,000 followers.
Given the bulk of the video is about elections, it is not clear if Trump watched the whole video and was aware of the content shared at the end.
Perspective: Trump Slopaganda Sinks to a New Low—Just Like His Polling
...
Why It Matters
Political polarization online has increased in the last few years, sparking conversations about the balance between free speech and offensive discourse.
What To Know
The 62-second video, which appears to have originated from the website Patriot News Outlet claimed Michigan officials had accessed voting tabulators that showed potential election interference. It comes amid Trump's continuous unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was beset with electoral fraud and other issues, meaning former president Joe Biden's win was false.
Trump and his administration have repeatedly criticized Obama during the president's second term in office.
In July, he accused the former president of "treason" after Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, released a report alleging that Obama and members of his administration manufactured intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump also reposted an AI-generated video to Truth Social, which showed Obama being arrested and put in jail.
In a statement at the time, Obama's office called the accusations "bizarre" and said they "are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction."
A report by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) found Obama received a surge in online death threats after the accusations. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Newsweek at the time that Trump and his administration "strongly condemn all forms of violence."
Trump also hit out at Obama's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize award amid his own unsuccessful campaign to get the accolade. "He got elected and they gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying out country," he said in October.
Meanwhile, Trump's use of social media has drawn past scrutiny. In 2021, he was banned from Facebook and Twitter, now X, after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This led to the president forming Truth Social. His Facebook and Twitter accounts were later reinstated.
How Have People Reacted?
On X, various public figures condemned the video. Harry Sisson, a liberal social media influencer with over 374,000 followers, called it "incredibly racist and disgusting."
Former professional tennis player Martina Navratilova wrote on X: "Both Michelle and Barack have the IQ twice as high as trump if not more and he posts this racist s***????"
Ben Rhodes, an Obama administration staffer and co-host of the foreign policy podcast Pod Save the World, wrote on X: "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."
What Has The White House Said?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded early Friday in a statement shared with Newsweek, dismissing backlash to the video clip but not directly addressing criticism that the imagery echoed racist tropes.
"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King," she said. "Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."
Leavitt also shared a 55-second video posted by the @XERIAS_X account in October, which appears to be where the Obama video was taken from.
In this video, the "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" plays as various politicians and celebrities appear, depicted as wild animals, including former Vice President Kamala Harris as a tortoise, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a meerkat and Whoopie Goldberg as a hippopotamus. Trump is depicted as a lion.
What People Are Saying
"Disgusting behavior by the President," Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a post on X, reacting to the video. "Every single Republican must denounce this. Now."
X account Republicans against Trump wrote on X: "Trump just posted a video on Truth Social that includes a racist image of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys. There's no bottom."
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In the video white politicians are depicted as various animals as well, and Trump is depicted as a lion.
www.politico.com /news/2026/02/06/donald-trump-obamas-monkey-video-00768745
‘Most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House’: Tim Scott slams Trump for post depicting Obamas as monkeys
Gregory Svirnovskiy 2-2 minutes 2/6/2026
Depicting Black people as monkeys or apes is a centuries-old racist trope.
The post drew widespread backlash from Democrats. But the criticism from Scott — a longtime ally of Trump, once viewed as a potential vice presidential candidate , and the only Black Republican in the Senate — is particularly notable.
In a statement issued before Scott’s criticism, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash and said the clip came from a longer video that showed Trump as the Lion King and depicted top Democrats as jungle characters. Among others, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — all longtime rivals of the president — are shown as an elephant, boar, meerkat and giraffe, respectively.
But none of the other Democrats was included in Trump’s post.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) joined Scott by calling on Trump to take the post down .
Saw an article a few days ago stating that individuals with deteriorating mental conditions often lose their inhibitions allowing portions of their deeper selves to come out without and conscious restraints. So if you are a core racist, your racist tendencies are more on display since you no longer constrain them.
I'll see if I can find that article and link to it.
Sorry for the delay. Work...work...work...
What do we mean by loss of inhibition?
Sometimes a person with dementia can lose their inhibitions and may behave in ways that others find embarrassing. This can include:
being rude
saying things that aren’t appropriate (for example, that someone is overweight)
talking to strangers
undressing in public
apparent loss of sexual inhibition (for example, touching themselves inappropriately in public).
These situations can be very confusing, distressing, shocking or frustrating for someone with dementia, as well as for those close to them.
If someone close to you has dementia, you might notice that they stop following these social rules and behave in a way that’s very out of character for them.
Changes in behavior occur in the vast majority of people with dementia.
“…depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said.”
trump is miscast. He is the epitome of Ed, the crazy hyena antagonist.
There is no excuse to be found to justify the hate emanating hourly from this most fractured, pathetic creature.
And no matter what, Trump supporters will continue to defend and support this buffoon.
This has since been removed, and Trump blamed it on one of his staffers. Of course.
They show the video at the 2:00 mark
S-o-o-o-o-o Presidential...
Dont worry, Sean and Jack will tell us why this doesn't matter.
I haven't paid any attention to Sean for years. Jack seems to be trying to imitate Sean...
You obviously haven't paid any attention to Jack, either.
Here's the issue, John, and I'm not sure we could have a more perfect example.
For years, you have come on here every day insisting that everything Trump does is important.
The problem with that is, if everything is important, nothing is.
So then you come to a situation like this, your condemnation doesn't mean anything, because it's just another in an endless wave.
If you always condemn everything, there is no distinction between meaningless nonsense and something like this... which is pretty terrible.
Bla Bla Bla.
Everyone here understands you very well Jack.
Surely every DECENT American has already been humiliated by that piece of shit.
Setting aside the racism - not to mention basic rudeness - for a moment…
I’ve seen Lion King. Lots of times. I have kids. So have like a billion other people. We can all tell you that the animals attached to the Obamas do not appear in the movie. It is mind-blowing how this administration will lie about shit that is easily debunked, and already known to be a lie by anyone who hears it.
Are we supposed to believe Trump has seen Lion King and/or thought he was posting something from the movie?
7.1 thread was locked to prevent it from getting personal
Who wears it best?