WASHINGTON: Former US president Barack Obama criticized a lack of shame and decorum in the country’s political discourse, responding Saturday for the first time to a post on Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted him and first lady Michelle as monkeys.
The video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account on February 5 sparked censure across the US political spectrum, with the White House initially rejecting “fake outrage” only to then blame the post on an error by a staff member and taking it down.
Near the end of a one-minute-long video promoting conspiracies about Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, the Obamas — the first Black president and first lady in US history — were shown with their faces on the bodies of monkeys for about one second.
Obama responded to the video for the first time in an interview with left-wing political podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen released Saturday.
“The discourse has devolved into a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before...Just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you, your face on an ape’s body,” Cohen said in the interview.
