White House Deletes Ape Video, Calls It ‘Staffer Oopsie’ Moment
KEY POINTS
- •President Trump posted and deleted a video on February 6, 2026, showing the Obamas as apes on Truth Social.
- •The White House initially dismissed criticism as ‘fake outrage’ before removing the post and attributing it to staff error.
- •Senator Tim Scott condemned the video as the most racist White House moment he’s seen, demanding its removal.
On February 6, 2026, President Trump's Truth Social feed featured a video briefly portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, triggering a 12-hour digital sprint to delete the post. Initially, the White House waved it off as 'fake outrage,' until Republican Sen. Tim Scott, head of the GOP Senate campaign, issued a rare 'praying it's fake' plea. This latest star in the Age of Normalized Racism borrows from a long, ugly history where likening Black figures to monkeys has crashed careers — just ask Roseanne Barr, who got her ABC show canceled in 2018 for similar nonsense. Yet here we are, with the White House blaming a staffer's 'erroneous posting' while public outrage escalates faster than a TikTok trend.
Share the Story
When your official social media team has a ‘whoops’ moment with racist tropes, and the senior reply is ‘fake outrage,’ nothing says progress like normalized bigotry in 2026.
Deleting a video 12 hours too late isn’t an apology, it’s an archive commitment to racism.
Nothing says ‘we learn from history’ like putting an ape clip up, then blaming staffing confusion.
Source: Axios | Published: 2/6/2026 | Author: Russell Contreras
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