A video post on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account featuring a snippet showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama portrayed as apes, which comes from a broader AI video, has been deleted.
A senior White House official told CNN that a staffer was responsible for the post.
“A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” the senior official told CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene.
The video posted on Trump’s account focused on the 2020 election and featured a two-second clip at the end from a broader cartoon-style video that shows the Obamas’ faces, and former President Joe Biden’s on the bodies of cartoon apes. It includes other Democrats, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), portrayed as various animals, and features Trump as a lion, with the animals bowing down to him at the end.
The video was posted to Trump’s account at 11:44 p.m. on Thursday before it was deleted on Friday, according to Axios. Outlets across the establishment media called the post “racist” in their headlines.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt referenced the broader AI video the clip is from in a statement on Friday morning.
“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,” Leavitt said, USA Today reported.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow, Leavitt said the controversy “is fake news.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) strongly condemned the video posted to Trump’s account in a statement on X.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” he wrote.
Update: 4:12 p.m. ET:
As of 1:51 p.m. ET, Pastor Mark Burns reported that he spoke with the president about the post. Burns shared his own statement on X:
