U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday posted an election conspiracy video that depicted former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys, drawing condemnation from prominent Democrats.
Near the end of a one-minute-long video posted on Trump's Truth Social platform, the Obamas are shown with their faces on monkeys for about one second.
The video repeats false allegations that ballot-counting company Dominion Voting Systems helped steal the 2020 election from Trump.
As of early Friday morning, the video had been liked more than 1,000 times on the president's social media network.
The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and a prominent Trump critic, slammed the post.
"Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now," Newsom's press office account posted on X.
Ben Rhodes, a former top national security advisor and close confidant to Barack Obama, also condemned the imagery.
"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," he also wrote on X.
In the first year of his second term in the White House, Trump ramped up his use of hyper-realistic but fabricated visuals on Truth Social and other platforms, often glorifying himself while lampooning his critics.
Last year, he posted an AI video of Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and appearing behind bars in an orange jumpsuit.
Later, he posted an AI clip of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who is Black — wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero.
Jeffries called the image racist.
