Trump says he ‘didn’t see’ racist Obama monkey video clip posted on his account

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump on Feb 6 said he “didn’t see” the part of a video posted on his social media account that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys
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“I just looked at the first part... and I didn’t see the whole thing,” Mr Trump told reporters, adding that he “gave it” to staffers to post and they also didn’t watch the full video.

Mr Trump had shared a post with a racist video depicting the Obamas as monkeys, sparking outrage across the US political spectrum on Feb 6 before deleting it in a rare backtrack.

The White House initially rejected “fake outrage” over the video shared on Mr Trump’s Truth Social account late on Feb 5 night, only to then blame the post on an error by a staff member.

Democrats slammed Mr Trump as “vile” over the post about the Obamas – the first Black president and first lady in US history – while a senior Republican senator said the video was blatantly racist.

Near the end of the one-minute-long video promoting conspiracies about Republican Trump’s 2020 election loss to Mr Joe Biden, the Obamas were shown with their faces on the bodies of monkeys for about one second.

The song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background when the Obamas appear.

The video, uploaded at 11.44pm on Feb 5 US time (12.45pm Feb 6 Singapore time) amid a flurry of other posts, repeated false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the election from Mr Trump.

At first, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt played down the row, saying the images were “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,” Ms Leavitt said in a statement to AFP.

But almost exactly 12 hours after the post appeared on Mr Trump’s account there was an unusual concession from an administration that normally refuses to admit the slightest mistake.

“A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” a White House official told AFP.

There was no immediate comment from the Obamas.

Former vice-president Kamala Harris, who has long condemned Mr Trump’s divisive racial rhetoric, called out the White House’s backpedaling in a post on X on Feb 6.

“No one believes this cover up from the White House, especially since they originally defended this post,” she wrote. “We are all clear-eyed about who Donald Trump is and what he believes.” AFP