UPDATED WITH WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT: Karoline Leavitt has defended an apparently AI-generated clip portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as apes shared on Donald Trump‘s Truth Social account.
In a statement sent to Deadline, the White House Press Secretary said: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Overnight, the U.S. president’s verified account twice posted a minute-long video about voting machine anomolies, which features the PatriotNewsOutlet.com watermark. In the final moments of the video, a two-second clip flashes up showing the Obamas as apes, dancing in a jungle setting to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
The clip of the Obamas features an “@XERIAS_X” watermark, and it appears that the account originally posted the video in October last year. The 55-second video portrays Trump as a lion, while Hillary Clinton and Zohran Mamdani are depicted as a warthog and hyena respectively.
The @XERIAS_X account has a profile photo of Pepe the Frog dressed as Trump. The account claimed credit for the “fighter jet poop” AI video posted by Trump during the “No Kings” protests last year.
The White House did not respond to Deadline questions about whether Trump personally shared the post on Truth Social, or if he was aware of the Obama clip inserted into the voting machine video.
The post was condemned by Trump’s critics. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s X/Twitter account said: “Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”
The post came amid a flurry of updates on Trump’s Truth Social. Other clips shared on the president’s account included a dog magically appearing from behind a kitchen counter when hearing the sound of whipped cream being squirted.
Trump’s Truth Social account has previously shared posts that have been condemned as racist. Last year, the account shared a video that showed the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero. Jeffries denounced the memes.
