Republican Sen. Tim Scott criticized a video President Donald Trump shared on his Truth Social account Thursday night that includes a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott, who is Black and represents South Carolina, said in a post on X on Friday, Feb. 6. “The President should remove it.”
Scott endorsed Trump for president in 2024 after dropping out of the Republican primary race.
The 62-second video that Trump shared on Truth Social centered around election conspiracy theories, alleging that voting machines in battleground states had been tampered with as the 2020 presidential votes were tallied.
In the final seconds of the clip, two primates, with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed on them, appear as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens plays in the background. The post amplified Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The depiction of the nation’s first Black president and first lady as primates — during Black History Month — advances a longstanding racist trope used by slave traders and segregationists to dehumanize Black people and justify their mistreatment.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s post in a statement on Friday morning.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt, 28, said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Amid widespread backlash, the White House deleted the post and later issued a new statement, saying: “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
The video drew swift condemnation on social media, including from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black caucus leader in Congress, who praised the Obamas on X as “brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans” who “represent the best of this country.”
Jeffries called Trump “vile” and “unhinged” and demanded that every Republican “immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry.”
The press office for California Gov. Gavin Newsom shared a similar call, saying the Truth Social post represented “disgusting behavior by the President” and added: “Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
Echoing Scott, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York took to X on Friday and said, “The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”
A spokesperson for the Obamas was contacted for comment.
Trump has a history of making degrading remarks about the Obamas and other people of color, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a vocal Trump critic, and other Somali immigrants whom he called “garbage” in recent months and urged to “go back to where they came from.”
During Obama’s presidency, Trump promoted false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in Kenya and was constitutionally ineligible to serve.
Trump also repeatedly demanded that his predecessor produce birth records and prove he was a “natural-born citizen,” a requirement to become president. In her memoir, Becoming, Michelle said she’d never forgive Trump for stirring up the false “birther” movement in 2011, thereby endangering the Obamas’ two daughters, Sasha and Malia (then 10 and 13).
“The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed,” she wrote. “But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.”
