The White House has responded to criticism following the circulation of a video shared by Donald Trump on Truth Social that included imagery portraying former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as ap£s.
The 62-second clip focuses primarily on allegations about voting machines during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Near the end of the video, the Obamas’ faces appear briefly superimposed onto ape figures for approximately one second while the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background. A watermark from the pro-Trump X account @XERIAS_X is visible during that segment.
The post quickly sparked backlash from political figures and commentators. Obama, the first Black president of the United States, has often been the target of rac!$t caricatures, and depicting Black individuals as primates has historically been associated with racist imagery.
California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the post, describing it as “disgusting behavior by the President” and calling on Republicans to publicly denounce it. The X account Republicans Against Trump also criticised the video, accusing Trump of sharing rac!$t content and expressing outrage over the incident.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded in a statement shared with Newsweek, dismissing the backlash but not directly addressing accusations of racist symbolism. She described the video as an internet meme portraying Trump as the “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as characters inspired by The Lion King, urging critics to focus on issues she claimed were more important to the American public.
Leavitt additionally shared a longer version of the video originally posted by the same X account in October. In that version, various political figures and celebrities appear as different animals, with Trump depicted as a lion. Other portrayals included former vice president Kamala Harris as a tortoise, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as a meerkat, and Whoopi Goldberg as a hippopotamus.
Trump’s social media activity has long drawn scrutiny. In 2021, he was banned from Facebook and Twitter (now X) following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. He later launched Truth Social, while his accounts on Facebook and X were eventually reinstated.
The video was posted alongside renewed claims by Trump alleging irregularities in the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, who previously served as Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017. Trump had earlier won the presidency by defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Within the clip, cybersecurity figure Phil Waldron claims that several key states halted vote counting simultaneously and alleges that voting machines were used to manipulate election outcomes. He asserts that when counting resumed, there was a significant spike in votes favouring Biden.
Trump reportedly shared the video twice on his platform. The Obamas appear only briefly at the end, depicted as AI-generated ap£s dancing to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a song widely associated with Disney’s The Lion King.
The video has continued to provoke strong reactions online, with many critics accusing Trump of promoting rac!$t imagery, while the White House has characterised the criticism as exaggerated.