A video shared on President Donald Trump's social media account that briefly depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes was deleted on Friday after the White House said it was “erroneously” posted.
The offending post, which remained on Mr Trump's Truth Social account for about 12 hours after it went up during a flurry of late-night messaging on Thursday, had been shared by a staffer, the White House said.
The minute-long video on Mr Trump's account amplified his false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud. At the end of the video, the footage briefly jumps to an apparently AI-generated clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas' heads, while The Lion Sleeps Tonight plays.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Politico.
The post on Trump's Truth Social network drew criticism from some Republican quarters, but most kept quiet. Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is a Trump ally and is black, said the video should be taken down.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Mr Scott said on X. “The President should remove it.”
Republican Representative Mike Lawler of New York was among several other prominent political figures who said Mr Trump should apologise and delete the post.
The Obamas did not publicly comment.
White supremacists have for centuries depicted people of African ancestry as monkeys as part of campaigns to dehumanise and dominate black populations.
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history,” said Ben Rhodes, a former Obama aide, on X.
Mr Trump has a history of sharing racist rhetoric and long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Mr Obama was not born in the US
In December, Mr Trump described Somalis as “garbage” who should be thrown out of the country.
Civil rights advocates have said Mr Trump’s rhetoric has become increasingly bold, normalised and politically permissible.
“Donald Trump’s video is blatantly racist, disgusting, and utterly despicable,” said Derrick Johnson, national president of the NAACP, a civil-rights group, in a statement to Reuters. “Voters are watching and will remember this at the ballot box.”
