United States President Donald Trump said he "didn't see" a part of a video on social media that included a racist segment depicting former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys.
The segment, along with the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," was at the end of a 62-second video shared by Trump that contained claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The video was later removed, the BBC reported today.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said, "I didn't make a mistake," when asked if he would apologize.
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He added that before its release, he had only seen the beginning of the video, which was uploaded by a member of his staff, and that he was unaware that it contained such a depiction of the Obamas.
Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is black, described it as "the most racist thing I've seen coming out of this White House," according to the BBC.
The White House initially defended the footage as an "internet meme" and told critics to "stop the fake outrage,"
But after a backlash, including from several Republican senators, the post was removed from Trump's Truth Social account, with a White House official saying a staff member had "mistakenly" posted the content.
The clip, reminiscent of racist cartoons comparing black people to monkeys, appears to have been taken from a post on the X network, shared in October by conservative meme creator Xerias, the BBC reports.
The video also depicted several other high-ranking Democrats as animals, including New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump's predecessor in the White House, Joseph Biden, is also depicted as a monkey eating a banana.
The Obamas have not yet commented on the video.
The video was one of dozens posted overnight to Trump's Truth Social account.
"I watch thousands of things," Trump said on Air Force One Friday, adding that after watching only part of the footage, "I gave it to people who usually watch the whole thing."
He says he liked the video's message about election fraud, but that if his staff had watched the entire clip, "they probably would have had enough sense to remove it."
"We removed it as soon as we found out about it," he added.
Some criticism also came from within Trump's own party.
Senator Scott, a Republican from South Carolina and a Trump ally, posted that he was "praying that it's fake, because it's the most racist thing I've seen coming out of this White House."
"The president should remove it," he added.
Another Republican, New York Congressman Mike Lawler, called the post "wrong and incredibly offensive - whether intentional or a mistake" and said it "should be deleted immediately, with an apology."
The criticism continued even after the post was removed.
John Curtis, a Republican senator from Utah, wrote on social media that the video was "blatantly racist and inexcusable."
"It should never have been published, nor should it have remained available for so long," he wrote.
According to CBS, the BBC's US partner, Florida congressman Byron Donalds - a long-time Trump supporter who is running for governor - called the White House after the video was released and was told it was the work of a staff member who had "let the president down".
The BBC has contacted the White House to get clarification on how many people have access to the president's account and what the approval procedure is for postings.
In a statement sent to the BBC earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said the clip was part of "an internet meme video that portrays President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from 'The Lion King.'"
"Please stop the fake outrage and report today on something that really matters to the American public," she added.
Before it was removed, Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called the video "disgusting and utterly despicable" and accused Trump of trying to distract public attention from the Epstein case and "the rapidly faltering economy."
Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications in the White House during the Obama administration, said: "Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace Obama as a beloved figure while studying him as a stain on our country."
In a brief statement, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said that "Donald Trump is a racist."
"Disgusting behavior by the president. Every Republican must condemn this. Immediately," California Governor Gavin Newsom's office wrote on X.com.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who himself accused Trump of racism last year after sharing an AI-generated image of Jeffries with a mustache and sombrero, responded to the new video by calling Trump a "disgusting, unaccountable and malignant parasite from below."
"Every Republican must immediately condemn Donald Trump's disgusting bigotry," he added.
The Obama segment was added to the end of a video that contained claims of a voter fraud conspiracy in the state of Michigan in the 2020 presidential election. These claims were refuted in successful civil lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against certain media outlets.
Trump also has a long history of criticizing and attacking Obama.
Before his first presidential term, Trump regularly made false claims that Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in Kenya and was therefore ineligible to be president.
He later admitted that Obama was born in the US.
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