US President Donald Trump is facing intense bipartisan backlash after posting, then deleting, a racist Truth Social video that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle setting, once again igniting a national debate over racism in US politics and social media accountability.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Truth Social post, which briefly showed the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the bodies of apes while “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played, was condemned by civil rights advocates, Democrats and several Republicans who warned the imagery would further damage the GOP’s standing with Black voters.
Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he would not apologise for the racist video, insisting he only watched the beginning of the clip, which pushed false claims of voter fraud and election interference, and blamed a staffer for not reviewing the end of the Truth Social post more carefully. He said the video, which stayed online for nearly 12 hours before being removed amid growing outrage, was taken down “as soon as we found out about it,” even as critics said the delay underscored a pattern of inflammatory content from the president’s social media account.
The White House initially tried to dismiss the uproar as “fake outrage,” but later shifted its position and said a staff member had mistakenly posted the racist clip to Trump’s Truth Social feed, a claim that did little to calm Republican strategists worried about the fallout in swing districts and among Black voters.
GOP Representative Mike Lawler of New York, considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress, publicly demanded that Trump delete the video and issue an apology, calling the post “wrong and incredibly offensive” in a message on X, even as other Republicans remained largely silent or attempted to downplay the controversy.
A South Carolina senator, Tim Scott the only Black Republican in the US Senate and a former contender for the party’s presidential nomination posted 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.”
In his remarks, Trump tried to distance himself from the racist images while still defending his broader social media strategy on Truth Social, calling the clip “a very strong post on voter fraud” and claiming, “nobody knew there was something offensive at the end”. When pressed on whether the episode would hurt Republicans with Black voters, he rejected the criticism and asserted, “I am, by the way, the least racist you’ve had in a long time,” a familiar refrain that has surfaced in earlier controversies over racially charged comments and posts.
Advisers and White House officials scrambled behind the scenes, contacting lawmakers and media outlets to insist that Trump was not directly responsible for publishing the racist video and was “very disappointed” with the staffer involved, highlighting the internal damage‑control operations that now routinely follow contentious Truth Social posts. Nonetheless, people familiar with Trump’s social media habits say he personally posts on Truth Social late at night and early in the morning and often amplifies content from far‑right accounts, with aides such as Natalie Harp and Dan Scavino also having access to his profile, raising questions about oversight and moderation of presidential messaging online.
The racist Truth Social video was part of a flurry of overnight posts praising Trump, attacking Democrats and reviving debunked claims about voting machines and the 2020 election, including allegations against Michigan’s secretary of state and content accusing Democrats of being “anti‑Black folk”. This latest incident joins a long list of controversies in which Trump or his allies have shared racially insensitive or AI‑generated material targeting Barack Obama and other Black leaders, including a previous video appearing to show Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and manipulated footage of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that he denounced as racist.
Civil rights organisations and election experts say the Truth Social video combining racist imagery with disinformation about voter fraud underscores how Trump’s social media presence continues to normalise extremist narratives and deepen racial polarisation in American politics. As the 2026 political season intensifies, the controversy over Trump’s racist video depicting the Obamas as apes is likely to fuel renewed scrutiny of Truth Social, platform moderation and the wider Republican Party’s efforts to expand its appeal among communities of colour.