ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Donald Trump declined to apologize for sharing a social media video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, saying he did not realize the image of the former president and first lady was tacked on to the end of the clip.
The president said Friday that he had watched and passed along the video — which focused on claims of voter fraud until the final seconds of the clip — to unidentified “people” to post to his Truth Social account, but that he “didn’t see the whole thing,” including the brief portion that showed the heads of the Obamas edited onto the bodies of apes.
In response to a question from The Washington Post about whether he would heed the calls of some Republicans to apologize for posting the video, which was widely condemned as racist and offensive, Trump said he would not.
“No, I didn’t make a mistake,” Trump said on his way to Palm Beach, Florida, for the weekend. “I look at a lot of — thousands of things. And I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.”
Trump referred to the controversial video as “a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.”
The video was posted late Thursday night. On Friday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post, decrying the “fake outrage” and saying the ape image was “from an internet meme video” that showed Trump as “King of the Jungle” and other Democrats as “characters from the Lion King.”
But the pushback was swift, including from Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chamber’s only Black Republican, who also serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Scott called the post “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Several other GOP senators and House members joined Scott in condemning the video, with some calling on Trump to apologize.
White House officials subsequently said a staffer had posted the video “erroneously,” and by midday the post had been deleted.
Trump said he spoke with Scott on Friday, saying “he was great,” and calling Scott “a great guy.”
Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Friday, Trump dismissed the notion that the post and his handling of it could hurt him with the minority voters he had made gains with during the 2024 election. He touted criminal justice reform legislation passed during his first term, as well as his efforts to ensure funding to historically Black colleges and universities.
“I am, by the way, the least racist president you’ve had in a long time, as far as I’m concerned,” Trump said. He touted his electoral performance with Black male voters in 2024, compared with past Republicans.
“Black voters have been great to me,” Trump said. “I’ve been great to them.”
Asked whether he condemned the racist portion of the video, Trump said, “Of course I do.”
The post Thursday night was the latest example of the president’s social media habits prompting condemnation from some in his party — and resulting in White House staff having to take down posts.
Last year, Trump posted an AI-generated video that featured him promising the public access to “medbeds,” a concept pushed in recent years by right-wing conspiracy theorists who claimed the devices could cure illnesses if the government made them available to the general public. The post was deleted after facing scrutiny. And Trump a month later shared another AI-generated video portraying him flying a fighter jet that dropped excrement on protesters at “No Kings” rallies.
The president, who is known to work the phones speaking to friends, allies, business executives and world leaders at all hours of the night, regularly and frequently makes posts and reposts of content in the evening hours.
He said Friday that when he asks staff to post content to his social media account, “generally they look at the whole thing.”
“I liked the beginning, I saw it, and just passed it on,” Trump said. “And I guess probably nobody reviewed the end of it, because what I saw at the beginning was really, really strong. It was about fraudulent elections.”
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