Trump stands firm after racist video of Obamas portrayed as monkeys posted on his social media account
Donald Trump. Credit line: Will Oliver – Pool via CNP / Zuma Press / Profimedia
US President Donald Trump on Thursday continued to downplay the backlash caused by a racist video of the Obamas posted last week on his Truth Social account, saying no White House staffer had been disciplined for the offensive post, The Guardian reports.
Trump, asked Thursday, on CBS News, to say whether he fired or sanctioned the employee who posted from his account the video in which the Obamas appeared, answered that he did not.
The US president then went on to apologize for the racist clip, which featured Barack and Michelle Obama as cartoon monkeys, claiming it was a reference to The Lion King, an animated film in which no monkeys appear.
The late-night video posted on Trump's Truth Social account combined part of a documentary that presented baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election as fact with a few seconds of animation featuring the Obamas.
It was “a pretty long clip, and there was a little bit that had to do with The Lion King,” Trump said. The White House previously blamed a presidential staff member for the release of the video.
In Trump's version, the video was not a problem because it had already been widely seen online.
“It was very much — it was broadcast all over the place long before it was posted,” Trump claimed, apparently referring to the fully animated clip from which the racist depiction of the Obamas, in which he was depicted as a lion, had been pulled.
“But that was … very powerful material about election fraud,” Trump added, referring to the video promoting unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, “and the piece you're talking about has been all over the place, many times, I think, for years.”
JD Vance: 'Not a real controversy'
Vice President JD Vance also dismissed concerns about the racist video on Wednesday, telling reporters in Azerbaijan that because he was away, the controversy started and then died down before he could pay attention to it.
Vance then repeated Trump's false claim that the video, which remained online for 12 hours, was removed as soon as the racist images were discovered. In reality, the White House press secretary initially defended the video, and it remained on Trump's account for hours, until it was deleted after even Republican supporters of the president denounced it as racist.
“You know, the president said that an employee posted a video, he hadn't even seen the whole thing; when he saw it in its entirety, he took it down,” Vance said. “It's not a real controversy,” the US vice president added.
“Should he apologize for posting a video and then deleting it? No, I don't think so,” Vance said. “I think people post things on social media and if you post something and you don't like it, you can delete it,” he added.
