Washington, Feb 6 (.) The White House on Friday removed an election-conspiracy video shared by President Donald Trump on social media that included racist footage depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
A White House official said a staffer “erroneously made the post,” which has been taken down.
The statement came after serious backlash, including from GOP Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, who called the post racist and said Trump should remove it.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” the South Carolina Republican, who’s also the chair of the Senate GOP campaign committee, wrote on X.
The White House had earlier defended the post and downplayed the response to the video, calling it “fake outrage.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said earlier Friday that the footage was part of an “internet meme video” that depicted the president as “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,” Leavitt had said in her earlier statement, in response to questions about the post.
The video, which is just over a minute long, promoted false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump.
Toward the end of the video was a roughly two-second clip that shows the Obamas’ heads edited onto the bodies of primates, with the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing.
President Trump shared the video to his Truth Social account at 11:44 p.m. Thursday. A link to the video now shows the page as “not found”.
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