President Donald Trump published – and later deleted – an election conspiracy video that shows former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as animals. Its dissemination generated condemnations for the racist representation of the first and only black president in the history of the United States. This Friday, February 6, the White House dismissed the criticism as "false outrage," before retracting it and stating that the video had been made "erroneously" by a member of its staff.
First modification: 02/06/2026 - 19:20 Last modification: 02/06/2026 - 19:28
Donald Trump removes from his social networks a racist video of the Obamas, the first and only presidential couple of African descent in the history of the United States.
On Thursday, February 5, the Republican leader released an election conspiracy video depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys, drawing condemnation from prominent Democrats.
"Disgusting behavior by the president"
Near the end of the minute-long video, posted on Trump's Truth Social platform, the Obamas are shown with their faces on monkey bodies for about a second.
The song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' plays in the background when the Obamas appear.
The video repeats false claims that vote counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.
Until the early hours of this Friday, February 6, the moving image had received thousands of "likes" on the president's social networks.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and prominent Trump critic, sharply criticized the post.
"Disgusting behavior by the president. All Republicans must denounce it. Now," Newsom's press office posted on platform X.
The Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, described the video released by the current leader of the White House as "vile, deranged and evil."
"All Republicans must immediately denounce Donald Trump's disgusting bigotry," calling him a "sick individual," Jeffries declared in X.
Ben Rhodes, former senior national security adviser and close confidant of Barack Obama, also condemned the images.
"Let Trump and his racist followers be left with the impression that future Americans will accept the Obamas as beloved figures while considering him a stain on our history," he wrote on his social networks.
"False indignation"
The White House initially dismissed the condemnations, calling them "false outrage."
"This comes 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 false outrage and report today on something that really matters to the American public," press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the AFP news agency.
But hours later, the Presidency reported that a member of its staff had "mistakenly" posted the post about the Obamas, which was later deleted.
"A White House staff member mistakenly posted the post. It has been removed," a White House official stated.
Obama is the only black president in the history of the United States and supported Trump's opponent, Kamala Harris, in the electoral campaign for the 2024 presidential elections, in which the real estate magnate managed to return to the Presidency, despite having been found guilty of 34 crimes related to falsification of invoices, checks and accounting records.
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Although no sentence was imposed, given his second election victory, Trump became the first convicted president in US history.
The Republican leader has a long history of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and using inflammatory, sometimes racist rhetoric.
When Obama was in the White House, Trump promoted the false claim that the Hawaiian-born 44th president was born in Kenya and was constitutionally ineligible to serve in office.
Obama finally released his Hawaii birth records. And Trump acknowledged during his 2016 campaign, after winning the Republican nomination, that Obama had been born in the United States.
This article has been adapted from its original English version
Con AFP y Reuters
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