The Republican president’s post Thursday night was blamed by a staff member after widespread attacks, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, over its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. A rare admission of a White House misstep, the removal came hours after press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the post as “fake outrage.” After calls for its removal — including from Republicans — the White House said a staffer posted the video in error.

The post was part of a flurry of overnight activity on Trump’s Truth Social account that fueled his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, however. courts across the country and Trump’s first-term attorney general found no evidence of systematic fraud.

Trump has a record of severe personal criticism of the Obamas and the use of incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric – from feeding the lie that Obama is not a native-born US citizen to crude generalizations about majority-Black countries.

The post came during the first week of Black History Month and days after a Trump proclamation Citing “black Americans’ contributions to our national greatness” and “the American principles of liberty, justice, and equality.”

A spokeswoman for Obama said the former president, a Democrat, had no answer.

‘An internet meme’

Almost all of the 62-second clip appears to be from the conservative video accusing the deliberate tampering of voting machines in battleground states as the 2020 votes are tallied. At the 60-second mark is a quick scene of two jungle primates, with the smiling faces of the Obamas imposed on them.

The frames come from a different video, which was previously circulated by an influential conservative who created the meme. It shows Trump as the “King of the Jungle” and depicts the leaders of the Democratic Party, including Joe Biden, who is white, as a jungle monkey eating a banana.

“This is from an internet meme video that depicts President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said via text.

The 1994 Disney feature film Leavitt refers to is set in the savannah, not the jungle, and does not include great apes.

“Please stop the fake outrage and report something today that matters to the American public,” Leavitt added.

By noon, the post had been removed, with responsibility placed on a lowly Trump.

The White House’s explanation raised questions about control of Trump’s social media accounts, which he has used to levy tariffs on imports, threaten military action, make other announcements and intimidate political opponents. The president often signs his name or initials after policy posts.

The White House did not immediately respond to a question about how the posts will be reviewed and when the public will know when Trump himself posted.

Mark Burns, a pastor and a prominent supporter of Trump who is Black, said on Friday in X that he spoke “directly” to Trump and that he recommended to the president that he fire the staffer who posted the video and publicly condemned what happened.

“He knew it was wrong, hurtful, and unacceptable,” Burns posted.

Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke, DN.Y., told The Associated Press that she “doesn’t buy the White House’s comment.”

“If there’s not a climate, a toxic and racist climate inside the White House, we’re not going to see this kind of behavior regardless of who it’s coming from,” Clarke said, adding that Trump “is a racist, he’s a bigot, and he’s going to continue to do things in his presidency to communicate that.”

Condemnation across the political spectrum

Trump and White House social media accounts regularly repost memes and videos made by artificial intelligence. As Leavitt did on Friday, Trump’s allies have often dismissed them as laughable.

This time, condemnations poured in from across the spectrum – along with demands for an apology that didn’t come that afternoon.

At a Black History Month market in Harlem, New York City’s historically Black neighborhood, vendor Jacklyn Monk said of Trump: “The man needs help. I’m sorry he represents our country. … It’s terrible this month, but it’s terrible if it’s March too.”

In Atlanta, Rev. Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., echoed her father’s words: “Yes. I’m black. I’m proud of it. I’m black and beautiful.” Black Americans, he said, “are loved by God as postal workers and professors, as former first ladies and presidents. We are not monkeys.”

The lone Black Republican in the US Senate, Tim Scott of South Carolina, called on Trump to remove the position. “Praying it’s fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve ever seen come out of this White House,” said Scott, who heads the Senate Republicans’ midterm campaign arm.

Another Republican, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, white but representing the state with the largest percentage of Black residents. Wicker called the post “absolutely unacceptable” and said the president should apologize.

Some Republicans facing tough reelection this November have also expressed concerns. The result has been an extraordinary cascade of intraparty criticism for a president who enjoys a stranglehold on fellow Republicans who have kept quiet on Trump’s previous controversies for fear of a public fight with the president or losing his endorsement in the upcoming campaign.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the video “absolutely despicable” and pointed to Trump’s broader political concerns that help explain Republicans’ willingness to speak out. Johnson stated that Trump is trying anything to disrupt economic conditions and attention to Jeffrey Epstein case files.

“You know who’s not in the Epstein files? Barack Obama,” he said. “You know who really improved the economy as president? Barack Obama.”

A long history of racism

There is a long history in the US of powerful white figures associating Black people with animals, including monkeys, in demonstrably false, racist ways. The practice dates back to 18th century cultural racism and pseudo-scientific theories used to justify the enslavement of Blacks, and later to dehumanize freed Blacks as uncivilized threats to whites.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his famous text “Notes on the State of Virginia” that black women are the preferred sexual partners of orangutans. President Dwight Eisenhower, speaking of school desegregation in the 1950s, suggested that white parents should be concerned about their daughters being in classrooms with “big Black bucks.” Obama, as a candidate and president, has been featured as a monkey or other ape on T-shirts and other merchandise.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” speech similar to what Adolf Hitler did used to dehumanize Jews in Nazi Germany.

During his first term in the White House, Trump called most black, developing countries “shithole countries.” He initially denied saying this but admitted in December 2025 which he did.

When Obama was in the White House, Trump pushed false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya and was constitutionally unfit to serve. Trump, in interviews that have helped endear him to conservatives, has demanded that Obama prove he is a “natural-born citizen” if necessary to become president.

Eventually Obama released the birth records, and so did Trump finally acknowledged during his campaign in 2016, after winning the Republican nomination, that Obama was born in Hawaii. But right away, he said, falsely, that his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton started attacking birtherism.