President Donald Trump posted a video to Truth Social late Thursday depicting former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott condemned the post on Friday morning.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” he wrote on X. “The President should remove it.”
The video Trump shared Thursday discussed unfounded allegations of voter fraud involving Dominion voting machines during the 2020 presidential election. In the final seconds of the video, the feed cuts to the clip of the Obamas’ smiling faces on apes in the jungle, as notes from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” play.
The White House has shown no intention of removing the video.
It defended the president’s post Friday, connecting the clip to a popular video that circulated on X in October. That video depicts House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democratic figures as animals, with Trump as a lion.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
A slew of Democrats also took to social media to condemn the clip, the latest instance of Trump posting mocking and racist depictions of his political opponents using AI-generated content.
“Trump is a vile racist old man. The people in the @HouseGOP that don’t speak out on this, I’m going to assume you support this racism,” Rep. Herb Conaway wrote on X.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office called the video “disgusting behavior” and called on Republicans to denounce the video.
The Obama Foundation did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
The White House communications team has shared its own fake images, including a digitally altered photo that portrayed Nekima Levy Armstrong, a Minnesota activist who protested against ICE during a church service, as crying during her arrest. Armstrong wore a serious expression in the original photo.
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