{"id":475624,"date":"2026-02-15T02:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T02:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/475624\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T02:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T02:17:12","slug":"obama-responds-to-trumps-ai-ape-video-of-him-michelle-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/475624\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Responds to Trump’s AI Ape Video of Him, Michelle Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBarack Obama<\/a> has responded to an AI video<\/a> that Donald Trump<\/a> shared on Truth Social depicting Obama and his wife Michelle Obama<\/a> as apes. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a Saturday interview<\/a> with Brian Tyler Cohen, the host noted that \u201cthe discourse\u201d surrounding the current administration has \u201cdevolved into a level of cruelty that we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d citing the viral video, that was posted on Feb. 5 and subsequently deleted on Feb. 6. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFirst of all, I think it\u2019s important to recognize that a majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,\u201d Obama started. \u201cIt is true that it gets attention. It\u2019s true that it\u2019s a distraction. But, as I\u2019m traveling around the country, as you\u2019re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe since-deleted video posted on Trump\u2019s Truth Social account touched on false election fraud claims surrounding the 2020 presidential election, ending with an animation of the Obamas as apes. The clip featured characters from The\u00a0Lion King who dance to \u201cThe Lion Sleeps Tonight,\u201d however there are no apes featured in the Disney story.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOn background last Friday, a White House official told\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter, \u201cA White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe former president went on to address the Trump administration\u2019s unique social media strategy, which has came under fire<\/a> in the past. He added, \u201cThere\u2019s this sort of clown show that\u2019s happening in social media and on television. And what is true is that there doesn\u2019t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? So that\u2019s been lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the AI video was taken down from Trump\u2019s official social media page, it sparked widespread backlash. California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed the post as \u201cDisgusting behavior by the president,\u201d while South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott wrote online, \u201cPraying it was fake because it\u2019s the most racist thing I\u2019ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barack Obama has responded to an AI video that Donald Trump shared on Truth Social depicting Obama and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1780,1376,43,26169,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-475624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-michelle-obama","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}