Donald Trump refuses to apologize for AI clip in which Obamas appear as monkeys: 'I didn't do anything wrong, I only saw the beginning'

Donald Trump has sparked a racism scandal at the White House after sharing an AI-generated video depicting the Obamas as monkeys. Although the post was deleted following harsh criticism, the US president told CNN he had no reason to apologize, according to CNN.

On board Air Force One, Donald Trump revealed to reporters that he had watched at least part of the video shared Thursday night on the Truth Social platform. The footage, which theorized about alleged 2020 election fraud, includes towards the end a two-second AI montage of the Obamas' faces appearing on the bodies of monkeys.

Although the White House had previously said a staffer posted it in error, Donald Trump admitted that he was the one who viewed the beginning of the footage and forwarded it to the team for publication.

The president insisted responsibility for missing the offending clip rested with his underlings, claiming he took down the post “immediately” he learned of the racist content, even though the clip had been online for nearly 12 hours.

“I saw the beginning. It was fine,” Trump said, referring to the first part of the video that contained debunked claims of voting machine fraud. “It was a very strong post on election fraud,” he continued. “No one knew that was at the end. If they saw it, they would have seen it and probably had the good sense to delete it.”

Trump also said that after watching the first part of the video, he forwarded it to a member of his team, who he said should have watched it all the way through. “Someone made a mistake and missed a very small part,” the US leader said.

Asked directly if he would apologize, amid calls from the Republican Party to do so, he declined. “No, I wasn't wrong.” When pressed by reporters about the offensive content, Trump made it clear that he disapproved of the sequences: “Of course I do,” he said,

The president was later asked if the video could hurt Republicans' standing among black voters. He replied: “I'm the least racist president you've had in a long time,” he said.

The negative reaction of the Republican Party

The White House's explanation came amid a strong backlash, even from within the Republican camp. Senator Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, was the most vocal critic, calling the montage racist.

“I pray it's fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen from this White House. The president should take it down,” he wrote on the X platform.

Donald Trump confirmed to reporters that he had spoken directly with Scott on Friday morning, just before the video disappeared from his official feed.

Initially, the White House tried to minimize the incident, calling the criticism a “fake outrage”, the official position changed radically. An official told CNN that “a White House staffer made the post by mistake,” while Senate sources confirmed that several Republican lawmakers had personally called the president to ask him to take down the images.

The controversy has put the White House on the defensive, forcing officials and aides to reach out to lawmakers and the media to deny any direct involvement by the president.

This is the latest instance of Trump using AI content to attack his opponents. Previous cases include the video of Barack Obama's mock arrest and the derogatory montage of Hakeem Jeffries, both of which drew strong backlash.