Barack Obama is breaking his silence to address President Donald Trump‘s “clown show” and “deeply troubling” racist video he shared online depicting the former President and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
RELATED: Outrage Erupts After Donald Trump Shares Racist Video Depicting Barack And Michelle Obama As Apes
Last week, Trump’s official Truth Social account posted a video depicting The Obamas as apes. The minute-long video, posted on February 5 at 11:44 p.m. ET, largely focused on debunked claims about the 2020 election. However, near the end of the clip, it quickly swiped up to the next clip, briefly showing The Obamas’ faces on the bodies of apes. Over the clip, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” played.
While there was no explanation in the clip itself, the next morning (February 6), White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the criticism. She called it “fake outrage” and said the racist animation of The Obamas was from an “internet meme” that depicted Trump as “King of The Jungle” and several Democrats as various animals.
The 55-second AI-generated video was posted on X in October 2025. It showed many Democrats as animals and bowing to Trump, depicted as a lion. In the clip, The Obamas were apes, former President Joe Biden appears as a baboon, former Vice President Kamala Harris as a tortoise, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as a donkey, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a hyena, Hillary Clinton as a warthog, Whoopi Goldberg as a hippo, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a zebra, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as a meerkat, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker as an elephant.
RELATED: Republican Senator Tim Scott Reacts Donald Trump’s Post About The Obamas
Donald Trump Pulls Video Depicting Barack And Michelle Obama As Apes, Blames White House Staffer, And Refuses To Apologize
On February 11, Vice President JD Vance also addressed Trump’s post and said “it’s not real controversy.” Later, Trump then shared a video to his Truth Social account, showing him surrounded by several Black celebrities over his long entertainment and recent political career.
RELATED: JD Vance Says The Video Depicting The Obamas As Apes ‘Is Not Real Controversy’ Also Says He Doesn’t Think Donald Trump Should Apologize
Barack Obama Breaks Silence On Donald Trump Posting Racist Video Depicting Him And Michelle Obama As Apes
A week after all of the drama, Barack Obama breaks his silence to comment on Donald Trump’s racist video. The former prez sat with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, who started off the conversation, stating:
“As you know better than anybody, the discourse has devolved into a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before. What was disqualifying just a few years ago, now not only feels fine, acceptable, but actually rewarded.
You have administration officials saying that the victims of ISIS aggression are domestic terrorists. You have JD Vance coming out and saying that it’s okay, you don’t have to apologize for being white. Just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you, your face on an ape’s body. And so again, we’ve seen the devolution of the discourse. How do we come back from a place that we have fallen into?”
Obama replied:
“Well, first of all, I think it’s important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling. It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.
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.
But the reason I point out that I don’t think the majority of the American people approve of this is because ultimately, the answer is going to come from the American people. We just saw this in Minnesota, in Minneapolis.”
Obama continued, “It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the way that federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed, without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try to….”
Cohen added, “Bait their parents.” Obama continued, “…Bait, their parents, all the stuff that we saw, tear-gassing crowds simply who were standing there, not breaking any laws.” The former President added:
“So the rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous, but we should take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary outpouring of organizing, community building, decency, neighbors buying groceries for folks, accompanying children to school, teachers who were standing up for their kids, 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 and shining a light on the sort of behavior that in the past, we’ve seen in authoritarian countries and we’ve seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America.
That kind of heroic, sustained behavior in subzero weather by ordinary people is what should give us hope, and should remind us that at the end of the day, the way we get a democracy that’s working and the way we get policies that actually are helping working families get ahead, the way that we restore norms, rule of law, decency, it’s going to be because we, citizens, are activated and paying attention and saying “enough” and saying we have a different idea of what the American family should look like and community should look like, and that is what I’m seeing across the board.
I was on a panel a while back, and I said, a lot of the values that we say we subscribe to during easy times, during peaceful times, it’s easy to say we believe in those things. When they’re not challenged. It’s easy to believe in free speech when it doesn’t seem like the government is trying to crack down on free speech. It’s easy to say that we believe in the golden rule when we aren’t at risk of being arrested when we exercise the golden rule.
Right now, we’re being tested, and the good news is, what we saw in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and what we’re seeing in places across the country, including here in Los Angeles, has been the American people saying, no, you know what — at least a good number of the American people saying, we’re going to live up to those values that we say we believe in. As long as we have folks doing that, I feel like we’re going to get through this.”
#Socialites, be sure to check out the post below, then leave us your thoughts in a comment after!
