Outrage as Trump Shares Racist AI Video Portraying Obamas as Apes While Repeating Election Fraud Claims

Segun Atanda/

US President, Donald Trump, has sparked widespread condemnation after sharing a racist, AI-generated video depicting former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes on his Truth Social account.

The controversial clip appeared briefly near the end of a one-minute video posted by Trump, which focused on his long-running allegations against Dominion Voting Systems, the ballot-counting company he has falsely blamed for his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

The offensive segment, which flashes on screen for about a second, shows AI-generated figures resembling the Obamas dancing in a jungle to The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

The post has triggered intense backlash online and is currently trending on X with critics describing the imagery as racist and dehumanising.

Supporters of the president have attempted to dismiss the video as satire, but prominent Democrats and former officials have condemned it in strong terms.

California Governor, Gavin Newsom, was among those who criticised the post, with his press office writing on X:
“Disgusting behaviour by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now.”

Ben Rhodes, a former senior national security adviser to Barack Obama, also reacted sharply, stating:
“Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history.”

The video forms part of Trump’s continued effort to revive false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, assertions that have been repeatedly rejected by courts, election officials and independent experts.

While the White House has pointed to a single case involving a Californian woman charged with voter fraud in September, there is no evidence of widespread or coordinated fraud.

Election specialists have said that rigging a US election would require illegal cooperation by officials across entire states, something for which no proof has been produced.

Trump has also renewed his criticism of vote-by-mail systems, used in eight states including California, despite safeguards that require election workers to verify voter identities by matching ballot signatures with registration records.

The renewed controversy comes just weeks after Trump once again described the 2020 election as “rigged” on January 6, the fifth anniversary of the Capitol riot, which erupted amid his attempts to overturn the election result.

Five people died during the unrest, including a Capitol police officer.

Trump later pardoned around 1,500 individuals who had been criminally charged in connection with the attack.

Speaking to House Republicans at their annual retreat last month, Trump repeated his attacks on Democrats and former presidents, accusing them of incompetence and renewing claims that the election had been stolen, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The White House has not responded directly to the backlash over the AI-generated video, but the incident has intensified concerns about racist imagery, misinformation, and the use of artificial intelligence in political messaging as the US election cycle gathers momentum.