The White House has deleted a video posted by Donald Trump of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, which critics described as racist.
The US President posted some 66 times on Truth Social in less than two hours last night, including a video about rigged voting machines.
The minute-long clip ended with a two-second shot of the Obamas as apes, dancing in a jungle setting to The Lion Sleeps Tonight, which is thought to have been AI generated.
A White House official said a member of staff ‘erroneously made the post’ and it has now been taken down.
X user Xerias claimed credit for the Obama video, which the account shared on social media in October.
It mocked many of Trump’s now-familiar string of rivals, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Trump, meanwhile, was depicted as a lion lying on a hammock.
Xerias previously claimed that it made the ‘fighter jet poop’ AI video posted by Trump during the No Kings protests.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed to Metro that the clip in Trump’s video yesterday was the one posted by Xerias.
She added: ‘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.’
The video Trump shared last night features a watermark for PatriotNewsOutlet.com, a largely empty news website when viewed.
PatriotNewsOutlet.com have been approached for comment.
The post was condemned by Trump’s critics, with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office X account calling it ‘disgusting’.
It added: ‘Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.’
Political commentator Harry Sisson called the digitally edited video ‘incredibly racist’.
A user on X added: ‘This is what we are now. This is what the highest office in the land is posting.’
Another said: ‘There’s absolutely no way that any black Trump supporters can defend this. How do you defend a white man posting images of Black people as monkeys.’
This isn’t the first time that Trump has posted about the former president – he uploaded an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested in July.
The phoney video shows Obama on his knees while being handcuffed by the FBI at the Oval Office.
Amid criticism for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files in July, Trump accused Obama of ‘treason’.
The Republican pledged to use the Justice Department to go after the former Democratic president.
