Obama hits back after racist Trump video spreads

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Barack Obama denounces a video depicting him and Michelle Obama as apes, calling it alarming and corrosive to public discourse.
Donald Trump refuses to apologize, says he did not watch the full clip before it was shared.

Former US President Barack Obama has broken his silence over a racist video circulated last week that depicted him and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes, a post that sparked widespread condemnation across political circles.

The clip was shared on Truth Social, the platform owned by President Donald Trump, and was later removed after intense backlash.

Obama warns of collapsing political discourse

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Obama said most Americans viewed the video as deeply troubling. He argued that the controversy reflected a broader collapse in political discourse, where standards of decency, responsibility, and respect have eroded across social media and television.

Rather than focusing solely on the clip itself, Obama used the moment to criticize what he described as an expanding culture of incitement promoted by politicians and public figures, according to The Daily Beast.

Trump rejects apology

Trump earlier refused to apologize for sharing the video, saying in a press statement, "I did nothing wrong," while also claiming to condemn racist imagery.

In a separate interview, Trump said he did not watch the full clip, adding that he viewed only the opening segment. He said the video was forwarded to staff for posting without being fully reviewed by them either.

Video content sparks bipartisan backlash

The one-minute video, originally posted Thursday of the previous week and later deleted, repeated unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. It accused Dominion Voting Systems of helping manipulate results in favor of Democrats.

In the final second of the clip, the faces of Barack and Michelle Obama appeared in the form of apes, triggering sharp criticism. The White House initially dismissed the backlash as "manufactured outrage" before later stating that a staff member had shared the video "by mistake."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the clip was taken from a satirical online video portraying Trump as the "king of the jungle" and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.

Condemnation came from members of both major parties. Republican Senator Tim Scott, the only Black member of the US Senate, described the video as "one of the most racist things the White House has ever seen".