02/07/2026
PAY ATTENTION
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“Donald Trump supercharged his political career by claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t American. Yesterday, 16 minutes before midnight, the president’s account on Truth Social posted a video that suggests Obama isn’t even human.” Hana Kiros writes.
The video briefly shows the head of the first Black president and that of his wife superimposed onto the bodies of apes. They dance along to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
“The idea that Black people sit somewhere between white people and apes has long been used to justify cruelty,” Hana Kiros writes. “Cartoons circulated during the Civil War were printed with images similar to the one Trump posted: One labels a monkey holding a book upside down as a ‘negro-man’; another depicts a Black man on all fours, accompanied by the words ‘whar’s jeff davis.’ In 1906, a man born in what was then the Belgian Congo, Ota Benga, was displayed at the Bronx Zoo in a cage with an orangutan.” The ape caricature still colors how Black people are received in America. But this morning, the administration played the video off for laughs.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in response to a comment request before the Truth Social posts were removed.
“The White House did not answer my questions about why the administration initially defended the video, or why it remained up on the president’s account for 12 hours,” Kiros continues at the link in our bio. “Even if a staffer did post the Obama video, its message is resonant with the president’s past statements and actions.”
📸: Kevin Deitsch / Getty
