White House Removes Trump Post Featuring Racist Footage of Obamas
Staff Error Cited After Backlash Over Election-Conspiracy Post
WASHINGTON, Feb 7: The White House on Friday removed a social media video shared by President Donald Trump that included racist imagery depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
A White House official said the post was shared “erroneously” by a staffer and has now been taken down. The move came after widespread criticism, including from GOP Sen. Tim Scott, who called the footage “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and urged Trump to remove it.
Earlier, the White House had defended the video, describing it as an “internet meme” portraying Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed concerns as “fake outrage,” asking media outlets to “report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The video, just over a minute long, promoted false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump. A brief two-second clip near the end showed the Obamas’ heads edited onto primates, accompanied by the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
