President Donald Trump deleted a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes from his social media platform after a bipartisan outcry, including from Tim Scott, the only Black Republican US senator.
Trump reposted the clip on Thursday to his 11.7 million followers on Truth Social. It included a narrator making unsubstantiated claims that voting machines were insecure in battleground states during the 2020 election, which former President Joe Biden won.
In the last seconds of the video, photos appear of the former president and first lady’s faces, with their mouths agape, superimposed on the bodies of primates. They bounce back and forth against a jungle backdrop as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays. The images evoke a centuries-old racist trope about Black people. The post was subsequently deleted Friday, after Scott and other Republican lawmakers urged Trump to take it down, along with Democrats and civil-rights groups. Trump told reporters late Friday that he “didn’t see the whole thing” before it was posted to his Truth Social account. The president said he had seen the first part of the video, about voter fraud, and sent it to staff. He added that “generally they look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t.”
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