Trump says he won’t apologise for post depicting Obamas as apes

2026-02-07 - 06:38

President Donald Trump removed a social media post late Thursday that included racist imagery superimposing former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama’s faces onto cartoon apes, but stated Friday night that he will not apologize for sharing it. The roughly one-minute video primarily promoted false claims of 2020 election fraud. Near the end, it abruptly shifted to the edited ape imagery set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he only viewed the opening portion and passed it along. “I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” he said. “I looked in the first part and it was really about voter fraud...and the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is. Then I gave it to the people. Generally, they’d look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn’t, and they posted.” He added: “We took it down as soon as we found out about it.” A White House official told NBC News