Donald Trump finally pulled a racist video from his social media account that grotesquely portrayed Barack and Michelle Obama as dancing monkeys — but only after members of Congress from both parties called him out.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on X on Friday morning, before the post was deleted. “The President should remove it.” Scott’s criticism stands out: he’s a longtime Trump ally, once floated as a potential running mate, and the only Black Republican in the Senate.
The video, just over a minute long, wove together conspiracy theories about 2020 election voting machines before cutting to a clip of the Obamas in monkey form, gyrating to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” the classic 1961 song featured in Disney’s The Lion King. The imagery taps into a centuries-old racist trope of depicting Black people as apes.
Democrats were quick to condemn the post. But the public rebuke from Scott — and later from fellow Republicans Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) — sent a clear signal: Trump had crossed a line.
“Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this,” Ricketts wrote on X. “The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) echoed the sentiment: “The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had already tried to spin the post before the GOP criticism hit. She called it part of a longer meme that cast Trump as the Lion King and top Democrats as jungle animals — an elephant, boar, meerkat, and giraffe for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), respectively.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Controversy on social media isn’t new for Trump. Last September, he shared a vulgar AI-generated deepfake showing Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with Jeffries wearing a sombrero while speaking to reporters. Jeffries responded bluntly: “Bigotry will get you nowhere.”
For Trump, viral outrage is familiar territory — but this time, even his allies drew the line, and the backlash forced action.
