Trump doubles down on racist video, saying no staffer has been disciplined | Donald Trump
Donald Trump on Thursday continued to ignore widespread backlash over a racist video posted to his social media account last week, saying no White House staffers faced any consequences for the offensive post.
Asked by CBS News’ Weijia Jiang on Thursday whether he had “fired or disciplined the staff who posted the video from your account involving the Obamas,” Trump said he had not.
The President then continued excuse the racist clipIt’s a reference to the animated film The Lion King, which depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as cartoon monkeys, with no monkeys in it.
The video, published late at night on Trump’s Truth Social account, combines part of a documentary that presents conspiracy theories about the 2020 election as fact and a few seconds of a racist animation of the Obamas.
Trump described the video as “a pretty long video, it had a little bit about The Lion King” before blaming an unnamed staffer as he tried to downplay the disgusting racism the White House initially defended. In fact, the entire video was just over a minute long.
In Trump’s telling, this racist video wasn’t a problem because it was already widely viewed online. “It did very well; it was shown everywhere, way before it was released,” Trump said, apparently referring to the full-length animated clip that took the Obamas’ racist portrayal and depicted himself as a lion.
Trump added of the video pushing baseless conspiracy theories: “But it was… a very powerful piece about voter fraud, and the piece you’re talking about has been everywhere, I think, for years.”
JD Vance also dismissed concerns about the racist video on Wednesday. He tells journalists in Azerbaijan Because Trump’s vice president was traveling, “the debate had started and was over before I even paid attention to it.”
Vance later repeated Trump’s false claim that the video, which had been on air for 12 hours, was taken down as soon as racist images emerged. In fact, the White House press secretary initially defended the video, and after even the president’s Republican supporters condemned it as racist, it remained on Trump’s account for hours until it was deleted.
“You know, the president said an employee posted a video, he didn’t even watch the whole thing, when he watched the whole thing he took it down,” Vance said. “This isn’t a real debate.”
“Should he apologize for posting a video and then taking it down? No, I don’t think so,” Vance said. “I think people share things on social media, and if you share something and you don’t like it, you can take it down.”
The initial post on Trump’s account drew immediate backlash from both sides of the aisle, including from prominent Republican lawmakers.
“I’m praying it’s fake because this is the most racist thing I’ve ever seen in the White House,” said Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican. in question In X.
“Even if this is a Lion King meme, a reasonable person can see its racist context.” wrote Nebraska senator Pete Ricketts. “The White House should do what anyone who makes a mistake does: remove it and apologize.”
New York representative Mike Lawler, in the name The video was “wrong and incredibly offensive”, he later told the ABC he thought the creator of the racist animation was “stupid”.
But even as the White House took the rare step of removing the video, the president refused to apologize for his openly racist post.
“I didn’t make any mistakes,” he said last week.
