President Donald Trump shared a racist video on his social media platform Thursday evening that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first girl Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle, sparking intense condemnation.
The Obamas briefly and all of the sudden seem close to the top of the brief video, which promotes false claims that voting machines helped steal the 2020 election, with their faces superimposed onto the our bodies of apes. As the photographs seem, for about one second, the beginning of the track “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” performs within the background.
The put up, which recollects the racist trope of evaluating Black individuals with monkeys, prompted swift backlash. In an announcement to NCS on Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt known as the broader response to the video “fake outrage.”
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt stated. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
NCS has reached out to the Obamas for remark.
The workplace of California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the video in a post on X, writing: “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
The incident is the most recent instance of Trump drawing criticism for sharing racist content material on his social media platform.
Last 12 months, the president posted an obvious AI video depicting Barack Obama being arrested within the Oval Office. Later final 12 months, Trump and members of his administration additionally shared digitally altered photos and movies of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries carrying a pretend mustache and a sombrero, imagery Jeffries publicly described as racist.
NCS’s Fadel Allassan contributed to this report.