Trump Forced To Apologize To Obama?

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) on Friday forcefully criticized President Trump over a video the president shared and later deleted, calling it “the most racist thing” he has seen come out of the White House.

Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican and a frequent ally of Trump, reacted after reports surfaced that the president had posted a video on Truth Social portraying former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The clip was removed shortly after it began drawing backlash.

“I’m praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” Scott wrote in a post on X. He added that the president should take the video down.

Within hours, the post was deleted. A White House official later told reporters that the video had been shared in error by a staff member and was promptly removed.

The incident sparked criticism from multiple Republicans, even as the White House initially defended the post as part of a broader meme referencing The Lion King, which depicted Trump as the “king of the jungle” and Democrats as various animals.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the few House Republicans representing a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, rejected that explanation and called the post inappropriate regardless of intent.

“The President’s post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake,” Lawler wrote on X, urging Trump to delete the video and issue an apology.

Other GOP lawmakers echoed that sentiment. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the post “totally unacceptable” and said it should be removed with an apology. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) also weighed in, saying that even if the video was meant as a meme, its racial context was obvious and warranted a clear apology.

The video itself was roughly a minute long and largely focused on an unsubstantiated claim about voter fraud in the 2020 election, a theory Trump has repeatedly promoted without evidence. In the final seconds, the clip briefly showed the Obamas’ faces superimposed on what appeared to be primates, set to music from The Lion King.

Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the backlash, saying the clip was taken out of context from a longer meme portraying Democrats as jungle animals paying homage to Trump.

“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle,” Leavitt said, accusing critics of manufacturing outrage.

The episode nonetheless highlighted growing unease among some Republicans over the tone and content of the president’s online posts, particularly as the administration faces heightened scrutiny heading deeper into the election cycle.