The evidence documenting Donald Trump’s years’ worth of racism is overwhelming, though in recent months the president appears to have gone out of his way to add to his disgusting record.
In the fall, for example, the Republican used the term “DEI” as a slur for minorities in blaming their involvement with the construction of Barack Obama’s presidential library. Soon after, the president, as part of an ugly anti-immigrant pitch, publicly referred to Somali Americans as “garbage” and revived his “s—hole countries” rhetoric.
The list, alas, continues to grow longer. The Associated Press reported:
President Donald Trump used his social media account to share a video about election conspiracy theories that includes a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle. […]
Nearly all of the 62-second clip, which was among dozens of Truth Social posts from Trump overnight, appears to be from a conservative video alleging deliberate tampering with voting machines in battleground states as the 2020 presidential votes were tallied. At the 60-second mark is a quick scene of two primates, with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed on them.
The fact that the Republican president didn’t make the video himself is hardly exculpatory: Trump saw the video and thought it’d be a good idea to amplify it, just as he did in his first term when he promoted a video of a supporter wearing Trump campaign gear while shouting “white power!”
Even some of the president’s more sycophantic supporters weren’t willing to provide backup on Trump’s latest example of racism.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who is Black, wrote online that he was praying the video “was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” The South Carolinian, who’s currently chairing the National Republican Senatorial Committee, added: “The President should remove it.”
At that point, Trump and his team had some limited options. They could have quietly deleted the president’s post. They also could have said it was posted by mistake. They might have even tried to claim that the president wasn’t fully aware of the contents of the entire video.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt ignored those options and went with a response that made an awful story worse.
In a statement sent to Deadline, the president’s chief spokesperson said, “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.”
How sadly predictable. To hear Leavitt tell it, Trump’s routine racism is unimportant, and outrage from both Democrats and Republicans like Scott is “fake.”
Complicating matters, a few hours after Leavitt tried to defend the racist video, the White House changed its story, saying in a statement, “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
Evidently, the press secretary’s “fake outrage” line proved unsustainable.
In his second inaugural address, Trump said: “To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come.”
Like too many of Trump’s promises, he wasted little time in trashing this commitment and returning to the kind of gutter racism that helped fuel his political rise in the first place.
UPDATE (February 6, 2026, 12:31 p.m. ET): This post has been updated to reflect the evolving White House explanation.
