White House Takes Down Widely Condemned Racist Obama Video From Trump’s Truth Social

The White House removed a controversial video from President Donald Trump‘s Truth Social account after it drew bipartisan condemnation for its racist imagery depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as primates.

The imagery was widely condemned as invoking a centuries‑old racist trope used to dehumanize Black people, especially given its timing during Black History Month. According to reporting by Axios, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially dismissed critics, calling the post a harmless “internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.” However, an anonymous staffer is now being blamed for posting the video by accident.

In a statement to International Business Times, a spokesperson for the White House said that “White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.” However, the President has not publicly addressed the controversial video himself.

Across Capitol Hill, Republican reactions were unusually critical of a president’s social media post, with several GOP senators speaking out forcefully against the content. Republican Senator Pete Ricketts of Nebraska wrote on X, “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”

Republican Sen. Tim Scott (South Carolina), the Senate’s only Black Republican and a frequent Trump ally, publicly denounced the video, calling it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and urging its removal. Scott said he was “praying it was fake” before it was taken down and made clear that its racist implications were unacceptable.

Sen. Roger Wicker (Mississippi), another veteran Republican lawmaker representing a state with a significant Black population, also weighed in. Wicker called the video “totally unacceptable” and said the president should apologize. The White House deletion came after wider criticism from civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, which described the video as “blatantly racist” for its reliance on dehumanizing depictions of the Obamas.

Before its removal, the video appeared on Trump’s Truth Social account amid a series of posts amplifying false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. These assertions have been repeatedly rejected in court and by a Trump‑appointed attorney general during his previous administration.

Democrats quickly seized on the episode to call for greater accountability, with leaders including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling the Obamas “brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans,” and Trump a “vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder,” on X.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the video as “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent. This is dangerous and degrades our country,” and called on President Trump to apologize to the Obamas, who “make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man.”

Representative Glenn Ivey wrote on X that “The racist post shared by President Trump depicting President @BarackObama and First Lady @MichelleObama as monkeys is vile and indefensible. Dehumanizing Black Americans is racist, rooted in hatred, and has no place in our politics. Every Republican who claims to stand for decency must denounce this behavior clearly and publicly. Silence is complicity.”