Tim Scott Slams Trump’s Obama Ape Clip as ‘Most Racist Thing I’ve Seen Out of This White House’

 
Donald Trump and Tim Scott

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) posted a rare critique of President Donald Trump on Friday after the president shared a video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

Thursday evening, Trump posted a video with baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that included a short clip of the Obamas’ faces superimposed on apes’ bodies.

The video was furiously criticized by Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans, members of the media, and other political commentators as racist.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post as simply sharing an “Internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle” and dismissed critics as voicing “fake outrage.”

Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican member, denounced Trump’s post in an X post Friday morning.

“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” he wrote. “The President should remove it.”

The video is not fake — especially after Leavitt acknowledged it — as numerous people pointed out in the replies to Scott’s post. The senator had not posted any other comments on the topic at the time of publication.

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Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.