President Donald Trump is refusing to apologize after a racist video showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama depicted as apes appeared on his Truth Social account on Thursday, Feb. 5.
While speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Feb. 6, Trump was asked whether he would say sorry for the post. The video showed the Obamas’ faces edited onto two apes as The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played in the background.
Trump dismissed the question outright.
“No, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.
He went on to argue that he had only reviewed part of the clip before it was shared.
“I mean I look at a lot of thousands of things. I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” Trump said, adding that he believed it was meant as a riff on The Lion King. He claimed the post was intended as a forceful message about voter fraud — even though his repeated allegations about the 2020 election being stolen after Joe Biden’s victory have been widely debunked.
“Nobody knew that that was in the end,” Trump said of the racist imagery. “If they would have seen it and probably they would have had the sense to take it down.”
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Earlier Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post in a statement, saying it was based on an internet meme and urging critics to “stop the fake outrage.” The video was later removed. A White House official said a staffer “erroneously made the post” and that it had been taken down. The administration did not publicly identify the staffer or clarify whether the person remained employed.
The post drew condemnation from several Republicans, including Sen. Tim Scott, who said he was “praying” the video was “fake,” calling it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House” in a post on X. Scott — who endorsed Trump in 2024 — urged the president to delete the video.
After Scott’s criticism, Trump said the two spoke and suggested the senator accepted his explanation.
“He was great. Tim is a great guy,” Trump said. “He understood that 100%.”
The imagery in the video echoes a longstanding racist trope historically used to dehumanize Black people and rationalize their mistreatment.
It also arrives against the backdrop of Trump’s earlier promotion of the false “birther” conspiracy about Obama — the claim that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in Kenya and therefore constitutionally ineligible to serve. Trump repeatedly demanded Obama produce birth records and prove he was a “natural-born citizen,” which is required to become president.
