Trump condemns, won't apologise for video with racist clip on Obamas

US President Donald Trump condemned but did not apologise for a video on his social media account that featured a racist clip about former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

The White House first defended the racist post on Friday, then deleted it 12 hours after it appeared.

The minute-long video shared on Trump's Truth Social network late Thursday amplified false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud. Spliced into the video near its end was a brief, apparently AI-generated, clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas' heads.

HISTORY OF PROMOTING RACIST RHETORIC

On Friday night, Trump told reporters he had not watched the entire video before a White House aide posted it to his account.

"I didn't see the whole thing," Trump said. "I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud in the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is. Then I gave it to the people. Generally, they look at the whole thing. But I guess somebody didn't."

Asked by reporters if he condemned the clip, Trump said, "Of course I do." But he declined to apologise, saying, "I didn't make a mistake. I mean, I give - I look at a lot - thousands of things."

Trump’s comments capped a day of competing narratives within the White House. An administration spokesperson initially defended the video as a harmless "internet meme" before another official said it had been posted in error and was removed, marking a rare retreat for a White House typically unflinching in defending Trump.

Trump, who is in his second term, has a history of sharing racist rhetoric. He long promoted the false conspiracy theory that Obama, the president from 2009 to 2017, was not born in the United States.

The post depicting the Obamas drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, including Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, a close Trump ally who is Black. "Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House," Scott said on X. "The President should remove it."

Other lawmakers in Trump's Republican Party called on him to apologise and delete the post. Some also privately contacted the White House about the video, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for the Obamas declined to comment.

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS, THEN DELETES, POST

Only a few senior aides have direct access to Trump's social media account, according to a Trump adviser and a person familiar with White House process. Trump and White House officials declined to identify the staffer who posted the video.

Before the post was deleted on Friday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt defended it and described the wave of negative reactions as "fake outrage".

Leavitt said it was "from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King". Trump's clip included a song used in that Disney musical.

But as criticism mounted, a White House official said the post had been taken down. "A White House staffer erroneously made the post," the official said. A Trump adviser said the president had not seen the video before it was posted late on Thursday and ordered it removed once he had.

Both officials declined to be named.

Trump told reporters Friday night that the video had some images at the end that "people don't like".

"I wouldn't like it either," he said.