LAGOS, Nigeria(VOICE OF NAIJA)- President Donald Trump has ignited a firestorm of bipartisan outrage after sharing a video containing racist imagery that superimposed the faces of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama onto cartoon apes.
Meanwhile, the White House removed the controversial Truth Social post, owned by Trump Media, late Friday morning, about 12 hours after it went live. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the president said he would not apologize, insisting he had not watched the offensive ending of the one-minute video.
The footage primarily focused on debunked 2020 election fraud claims before abruptly shifting to the racist caricatures set to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Addressing the lapse in judgment, Trump insisted he only watched the initial segments regarding “voter fraud” and “crooked machines” before handing it off to his staff.
“I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine. Generally, they’d look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn’t, and they posted,” he explained.
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This explanation did little to quell the immediate backlash from within his own party. The Senate’s sole Black Republican, Senator Tim Scott, slammed the post as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” while Representative Mike Lawler argued the content was “incredibly offensive, whether intentional or a mistake.”
Despite the internal pressure for a formal mea culpa, Trump maintained that his team acted correctly by deleting the post once the error was identified, stating firmly, “No, I didn’t make a mistake.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, initially dismissed the criticism as “fake outrage,” describing the video as a simple meme depicting Trump as the “King of the Jungle.” However, Republican lawmakers like Senator Pete Ricketts and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick countered that the racist context was undeniable, especially occurring during Black History Month.
While Trump noted that he spoke with Senator Scott and that the lawmaker “understood that 100%,” many in the GOP continue to describe the incident as a “grave failure of judgment.”
Ultimately, the fallout from this digital controversy remains a significant distraction as the administration faces renewed scrutiny over its persistent focus on 2020 election narratives.
