According to the New York Times, the number one news story of the last couple of days was a post that President Trump did on Truth Social. This has led their mass email no fewer than three times in the last 30 hours:
Trump posts video portraying the Obamas as apes
The blatantly racist clip is the latest in Trump’s pattern of promoting offensive stereotypes about Black Americans and others.
Six hours later:
Trump Deletes Racist Video of Obamas After Outcry
The White House press secretary had dismissed criticism of the clip’s racist content as “fake outrage.” But later Friday, the clip disappeared from the president’s social media feed.
And twelve hours after that email:
‘I Didn’t Make a Mistake’: Trump Declines to Apologize for Racist Video of Obamas
The video clip that President Trump posted in a late-night flurry of social media activity caused an unusually strong and public outcry from members of his own party.
I think the reference there is to Tim Scott, who denounced the video as the most racist thing he has seen from this administration. Trump, talking to reporters on Air Force One as usual, sought to explain what happened and said that he had an excellent conversation with Scott: “Tim is a great guy. He understood that 100%.”
Here is Trump on Air Force One. He says he only saw the beginning of the video, which had to do with election fraud. He didn’t know the ape images came later. He said the video was posted by a staffer, who apparently didn’t watch it all the way to the end, either:
I have no idea what Trump was talking about. Maybe it made sense, but the video is a “Lion King” takeoff in which Trump is the king of the jungle and Democrats are various animals. The Obamas as apes are right at the beginning. Later on, Hillary Clinton is a warthog, Joe Biden is a gorilla eating a banana, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a donkey (I think), Gavin Newsom is something similar. And so on.
It is a little hard to find the actual video; YouTube and other news sources are dominated by denunciations of it, but rarely actually show it to viewers. Here it is, accompanied by commentary. This guy has an explanation that supports Trump. I have no idea whether it is correct, or even makes sense:
So, was it racist of Trump to post the video? I don’t know, was it racist to show Biden as a gorilla? Or Hillary as a warthog? I don’t think so. I do think, however, that it was stupid. Anyone with the slightest understanding of how things work would know that a video portraying the Obamas as apes would prompt a storm of controversy, justified or not. If Trump posted the video, it was one more in a long series of pointless self-inflicted wounds. Trump would be a much more effective president if he could stop tripping over his own feet.
If a staffer posted it, as Trump implied, the staffer should be fired. But it would be a surprise to learn that someone on Trump’s staff has learned to imitate his social media voice and posts on his behalf late at night. I suppose that might be a relief.
