Former President Barack Obama has reacted to current President Donald Trump’s now-deleted sharing of a racist video of him and his wife, Michelle, that depicted them as apes.
In an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen that came out on Valentine’s Day, Obama spoke about the disturbing video that Trump shared on Truth Social, calling it “deeply troubling.”
It's important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” said Obama. “It is true that it gets attention, that it's a distraction, but as I'm traveling around the country … you meet people [and] they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness. And there's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television.”
Intentionally choosing not to name President Trump directly when speaking about the clip, Obama spoke more generally about today’s political landscape.
“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 the sense of propriety and respect for the office. That's been lost,” said Obama.
Obama’s words come after Trump shared the video on his Truth Social platform on Feb. 5. After it received understandable backlash for its racist undertones, Trump refused to apologize for it when speaking to a journalist on Feb. 6.
"No, I didn't make a mistake,” said Trump. “I mean I look at a lot of thousands of things. I looked at the beginning of it [before the Obamas were portrayed as apes]. It was fine.”
The racist clip was included towards the end of a larger clip that discussed unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud during the 2020 election. In Trump’s response to the backlash, he suggested that he didn’t know the racist section was included in the video.
"Nobody knew that that was in the end,” Trump claimed. “If they would have seen it and probably they would have had the sense to take it down."