Obama responds to Trump sharing racist AI video depicting him as an ape : NPR
Former President Barack Obama speaks at the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum 2024 December 5, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
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Former President Barack Obama responded to the racist video posted by President Donald Trump’s social media account earlier this month.
In an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama said many Americans “find this behavior deeply disturbing.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any shame about it among people who thought you had to have some sort of decorum, some sense of decorum and respect for the office,” Obama said in the interview, posted Saturday on YouTube.
“There’s this kind of clown show that’s happening on social media and on television,” Obama added, calling much of the noise around the Trump presidency a “distraction.”
Obama’s response follows outrage over the video, which depicted Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the clip, saying “please stop this fake scandal.” Trump refused to apologize for the social media post, telling reporters “I didn’t make a mistake” aboard Air Force One.
The video, posted at the start of Black History Month, has since been removed. The White House accused a staffer of “mistakenly” releasing the video clip.
Obama also shared his thoughts on the immigration crackdown and protests in Minnesota and elsewhere around the country, telling Cohen that a good number of Americans have said “we’re going to live up to the values that we say we believe in.”
“It’s important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis, St. Paul, the way federal agents, ICE agents were being deployed, without any clear direction, without training, ripping people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try to bait their parents, everything we saw, gassing crowds just standing there, not breaking any laws,” the 44th president said.
Obama called the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month a “heartbreaking tragedy” and said it was “a wake-up call to all Americans, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under attack.”
He also said the Trump administration has offered explanations for the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent, “that are not informed by any serious investigation.”
