*’Error Came From A White House Employee’
Following an intense backlash, the White House has now taken down Trump’s Truth Social repost of a video showing a racist clip depicting the Obamas as apes.
Multiple outlets cite a senior White House official as saying: “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.”
The post was up for 12 hours.
The White House had initially tried to brush off the outrage, defending Trump’s repost as “an internet meme video.”
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Karoline Leavitt said earlier.
“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Politicians from both parties had condemned the post and urged Trump to remove it. CNN also reported that GOP lawmakers had called Trump to discuss it with him, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Howey, Trump said he directed posting of the racist video, but claimed not to have seen that part on conspiracy theories pertaining to his 2020 electoral loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
The President admitted on Air Force One Friday night that he did direct aides to post the racist video on his social media account that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, but claimed that he did not see that part of the video, which was near the end of a 62-second clip that otherwise repeated conspiracy theories about his 2020 election loss.
As he so often does, Trump undercut efforts by his aides to explain away his own behavior, by telling reporters that he did approve posting the video.
“I looked at it, I saw it and I just looked at the first part,” the President said. “I didn’t see the whole thing; I guess during the end of it there was some kind of a [thing] that people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either. But I didn’t see it, I just, I looked at the first part… then I gave it to the people. Generally they look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn’t and they posted- and we took it down.”
Asked if he would apologize, as even Republican officials have suggested he should, Trump bristled.
“No, I didn’t make a mistake,” the President said. “I mean you give, I look at a lot of, thousands of things,” he added.
Trump then went on to offer a version of the explanation his Press Secretary had given earlier in the day, when the post was left up, that the meme was a reference to The Lion King.
“Nobody knew that was at the end” he added, in reference to what was, again, a clip that lasted just over one minute. “Certainly if they had looked, they would’ve seen it, and probably they would’ve had the sense to take it down.”
*PHOTO CAPTION: Trump.
