United States President Donald Trump has deleted a post from his Truth Social account following widespread backlash over a video that briefly showed former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama with their faces edited onto the bodies of monkeys.
The one-minute clip, shared late Thursday, repeated debunked claims that Dominion Voting Systems helped rig the 2020 presidential election against Trump. Near the end of the video, the Obamas appeared for about a second in the altered imagery as the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight played.
Business Hallmark reported that he post triggered sharp reactions on Friday from Democrats and some Republicans, who described the imagery as racist and unbecoming of a sitting president.
At first, the White House dismissed the criticism. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the video was part of an “internet meme” portraying Trump as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters from The Lion King, urging the public to “stop the fake outrage.”
However, roughly 12 hours after the post went live, a White House official told AFP that it had been taken down, attributing the upload to an error by a staff member.
There was no immediate response from the Obamas.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned the post, calling Trump “vile, unhinged and malignant,” and urged Republicans to denounce what he described as “disgusting bigotry.” The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom also criticised the post on X, describing it as “disgusting behaviour by the President.”
Ben Rhodes, a former national security adviser to Obama, said future generations would “embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying [Trump] as a stain on our history.”
Significantly, some Republicans also spoke out. Senator Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, described the video as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” while Senator Roger Wicker said the post was “totally unacceptable” and called for an apology.
The episode renewed scrutiny of Trump’s use of provocative and digitally manipulated visuals on social media, often aimed at political opponents. In the past, he has shared AI-generated content depicting Obama in prison and Jeffries in racially stereotyped attire.
Trump has faced longstanding criticism over racial issues, including his promotion of the false “birther” theory questioning Obama’s US citizenship.
The controversy also comes as the administration faces criticism for scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across federal agencies, including the military – policies rooted in the civil rights reforms of the 1960s aimed at combating racial discrimination.