The White House removed an election-conspiracy video shared by President Trump on social media after it was found to contain racist footage that transposed the faces of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama onto dancing cartoon apes.
The clip, which promoted unfounded claims about voting machines, ended with the animated sequence. It was posted to the president’s Truth Social account late Thursday and remained online into Friday morning before White House staffers deleted it around noon. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially downplayed the backlash, calling the clip an internet meme tied to The Lion King and urging critics to “please stop the fake outrage.” The White House later said a junior staffer had mistakenly posted the material.
The post drew unusually broad condemnation from members of Mr. Trump’s own party. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican and a frequent Trump ally, wrote that it was “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” and urged the president to remove it and apologize. Scott’s rebuke prompted a call from Mr. Trump and the subsequent deletion of the post, according to CBS News reporting.
The episode revives a long history of the president’s public attacks on Mr. Obama, including Mr. Trump’s earlier promotion of the debunked birther conspiracy alleging Mr. Obama was not born in the United States. GOP lawmakers and other critics have continued to press for an apology even after the White House said the clip was posted in error.
CBS News senior correspondent Weijia Jiang reported on the deletion and the party rebukes, noting the debate at news organizations about showing the image in coverage because doing so could amplify a racist depiction even as it is necessary for reporting the story.
