The account of U.S. President Donald Trump has removed a video featuring former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama characterized as apes, a publication that has drawn harsh criticism for its racist content even from the Republican ranks.
The racist depiction of the couple as chimpanzees in a jungle occurs at the end of a cut in which the song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ plays and which deals with the alleged intervention to manipulate Dominion Voting System’s voting machines in the 2020 presidential election in which Democrat Joe Biden won over Trump.
Dominion Voting System won several lawsuits against media outlets allied with the Trump-driven narrative that they were behind alleged manipulation of election results, something they proved false in court in several cases.
The racist cut that mocks the Obamas is shown in the last second of the video shared by Trump on Truth Social and appears to have been created by an Instagram user (xerias_x) who creates AI-powered videos and proTrump memes.
The removal of the video is an unusual gesture for Trump, especially after White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said hours earlier that the anger generated by the content was “feigned outrage.”
“This is a viral internet video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,” the press secretary wrote in a statement shared with media outlets hours before the video was removed.
“Please stop feigning outrage and report today on something the American public actually cares about,” the brief added.
The White House has offered no explanation for the removal of the controversial video, although The New York Times quoted an anonymous source as saying that the content had been posted on the U.S. president’s Truth Social account without Trump’s knowledge.
The publication generated criticism even from members of the Republican Party, including Tim Scott, a black senator from South Carolina who is considered a close ally of the New York mogul.
“I’m praying it’s fake, because it’s the most racist thing I’ve ever seen come out of the White House. The president should remove it,” Scott wrote in his X profile.
With information of EFE
