After first dismissing uproar over depiction of Obamas as apes, White House then said it was erroneously posted by staffer
White House officials sought to deflect blame from Donald Trump over a now-deleted video of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as monkeys, causing internal speculation about whether the president or his aide Natalie Harp was responsible for the post.
The brief clip, shared late Thursday night on Trump’s Truth Social account, appeared in a video pushing conspiracies about the 2020 election. Invoking racist tropes, the video depicted the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the bodies of cartoon apes dancing to The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Speaking later to reporters on Air Force One, Trump claimed he had briefly seen part of the video but then handed it off to an unidentified staffer to post. Trump said he would not fire the staffer in question but would not apologize because he did not make a mistake.
“No, I looked at the first part. It was really about voter fraud and the machines – how crooked it is, how disgusting it is,” Trump said. “Then I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t and they posted it. And then we deleted it.”
