HE has not apologised but US President Donald Trump has taken down the racist video on Truth Social containing AI-generated imagery depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces superimposed onto monkeys’ bodies.
The video was posted just hours after Trump hosted African heads of state at the National Prayer Breakfast at the White House.
The racist imagery appeared approximately 59 seconds into a one-minute video that promoted false election fraud conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems’ alleged role in the 2020 presidential election. The brief clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens, showed the Obamas depicted as primates for roughly one second.
The post came as part of a late-night social media barrage in which Trump shared more than 50 posts within 90 minutes, according to multiple observers tracking his activity.
The post has elicted strong criticism and condemnation across the US. California Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the post as “disgusting behavior by the President” and demanded that “every single Republican must denounce this.”
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security advisor and close confidant to Barack Obama, condemned the imagery, stating that it would “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 racist depiction drew widespread outrage on social media, with critics calling it “incredibly racist” and describing the president as “clinically insane.” The video, which Trump shared during Black History Month, bore a watermark corresponding to a Trump-supporting social media account.
Jarring Timing After Prayer Breakfast
The inflammatory post came just hours after Trump addressed the 74th National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning at the Washington Hilton, where he hosted several foreign dignitaries including African leaders.
Among the attendees were El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Democratic Republic of the Congo President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, along with his wife Denise Nyakero Tshisekedi.
During the prayer breakfast, Trump struggled to pronounce President Tshisekedi’s name, repeatedly calling him “brave” and “wonderful” without successfully articulating his name, instead saying “The president of the Congo… president… president, would you stand up please.”
The juxtaposition of hosting African leaders at a religious gathering meant to promote unity and faith, followed by posting racist imagery targeting America’s first Black president and first lady, intensified the criticism.
This incident represents part of a broader pattern in which Trump has ramped up his use of hyper-realistic but fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms during his second term, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.
Last year, Trump posted an AI video of Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit, and later posted an AI clip of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is Black, wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero. Jeffries called that image racist.
As of early Friday morning, the video containing the racist imagery had been liked more than 1,000 times on Trump’s social media network, indicating support among segments of his base despite the widespread condemnation.
The edited imagery appeared in a longer video advancing debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, continuing Trump’s pattern of spreading election misinformation even while serving his second term as president.
The depiction of Black Americans as monkeys or apes has deep historical roots as a racist trope used to dehumanize and demean African Americans. The use of such imagery by a sitting president targeting the nation’s first Black president and first lady represents an unprecedented breach of presidential decorum and dignity.
No Republican lawmakers had publicly denounced the post as of early Friday morning, despite Newsom’s call for them to do so.
Trump’s White House had not responded to requests for comment on the post by early Friday.
The incident occurred as Trump continues to promote himself as a champion of religious freedom and as divisions deepen over his administration’s policies, including controversial immigration enforcement actions that have drawn criticism from faith leaders.
