WASHINGTON: A video posted on President Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes was removed on Friday, after criticism including from some Republicans that the imagery evoked racist tropes historically used to dehumanise people of African descent.

The White House first defended the post, then deleted it about 12 hours after it appeared.

“A White House staffer erroneously made the post,” an official said. “It has been taken down.”

A Trump adviser said the president had not seen the video before it was posted late on Thursday and ordered it taken down once he had.

Both officials declined to be named. The White House did not respond to a question about the staffer’s identity.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt hours earlier had defended the post, describing the wave of negative reactions as “fake outrage”.

The minute-long video shared on Trump’s Truth Social network amplified false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud. Spliced into the video near its end was a brief, and apparently AI-generated, clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas’ heads.

Trump has a history of sharing racist rhetoric and long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Obama, the president from 2009 to 2017, was not born in the United States. Speaking at a prayer breakfast on Thursday, Trump said Obama “was very bad” and a “terrible divider of our country”.

The post drew bipartisan criticism, including from Republican Senator Tim Scott, a close Trump ally who is black. “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott said on X. “The President should remove it.”

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2026