A video shared by President Trump on social media depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys has been condemned as racist by prominent Democrats.
Near the end of a one-minute-long video posted on Trump’s Truth Social platform, the Obamas are shown with their faces on the bodies of monkeys for about one second.
The song The Lion Sleeps Tonight plays in the background when the Obamas appear.
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The video repeats false allegations that the ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped “steal” the 2020 election from Trump.
As of early Friday morning, the video had been liked several thousand times.
President Trump shared the video on his Truth Social platform
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The office of Gavin Newsom, the California governor who is a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, condemned the post. “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” Newsom’s press office account posted on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser and close confidant of President Obama, also condemned the imagery.
“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,” he wrote on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser
EVAN VUCCI/AP
Obama was the first and only black president in American history and backed Trump’s Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, on the campaign trail in the 2024 presidential election.
In the first year of his second term in the White House, Trump ramped up his use of fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.
Last year Trump posted a video generated by artificial intelligence showing Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
Later, he posted an AI clip of the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a fake moustache and a sombrero. Jeffries called the image racist.