WASHINGTON: Former US president Barack Obama criticised a lack of shame and decorum in the country’s political discourse, responding on Saturday for the first time to a post on Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted him and first lady Michelle as monkeys.

In a wide-ranging podcast interview with left-wing political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama also compared the actions of agents enforcing the president’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota to dictatorships.

The video, shared on Trump’s Truth Social account on Feb 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.

“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.

Former US president compares Minnesota crackdown to behaviour seen ‘in dictatorships’

“And so again, we’ve seen the devolution of the discourse. How do we come back from a place that we have fallen into?” Without naming Trump, Obama responded by saying the majority of Americans “find this behavior deeply troubling.” “There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? That’s been lost.”

‘Rogue behavior’

Obama predicted such messaging will hurt Trump’s Republicans in midterm elections, that “ultimately, the answer is going to come from the American people.” Trump has told reporters he stood by the thrust of the video’s claims about election fraud, but that he had not seen the offensive clip at the end.

Turning to Trump’s policies, Obama criticised his immigration crackdown in Minnesota and blasted the conduct of agents during the controversial weeks-long operation that was brought to an end this week.

Obama called the behavior of federal officers, which included two fatal shootings that sparked mounting pressure on Trump’s mass crackdown, as the sort that “in the past we’ve seen in authoritarian countries and we’ve seen in dictatorships.” Thousands of federal agents — including those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — carried out weeks of sweeping raids and arrests in what the Trump administration claims were targeted missions against criminals.

“The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous,” Obama said. But he added he had found hope in communities pushing back against the operations.

“Not just randomly, but in a systematic, organized way, citizens saying, ‘this is not the America we believe in,’ and we’re going to fight back, and we’re going to push back with the truth and with cameras and with peaceful protests,” he said. “That kind of heroic, sustained behavior in subzero weather by ordinary people is what should give us hope.

“As long as we have folks doing that, I feel like we’re going to get through this.” The aggressive immigration operation in Minnesota had triggered large protests and nationwide outrage. The Department of Homeland Security was subject to a partial government shutdown Saturday as US lawmakers fought over funding the agency overseeing much of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Democrats are opposing any new DHS funding until major changes are implemented over how ICE conducts its operations.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2026