President Trump said Thursday that the unidentified staffer who posted a video that included racist animation of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama with the bodies of apes was not fired or disciplined.
“No, I haven’t,” Mr. Trump told reporters when asked if he took any disciplinary action.
“That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud,” he said. “It was a very fairly long video and they had a little piece and it had to do with The Lion King. It’s been very well…It’s been shown all over the place long before that was posted. That piece you are talking about was all over the place, I believe, many times, for years.”
Mr. Trump touched off a firestorm with the since-deleted video that was widely condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
At the end of the video, the Obamas’ faces appear abruptly on the bodies of apes without explanation, with the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing over it. The video ends with imagery of conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
The White House has blamed the video, which was displayed on Mr. Trump’s social media account for about 12 hours, on a staffer who “erroneously made the post.”
Mr. Trump has refused to apologize for the video, saying, “I didn’t make a mistake.”
“I look at a lot of, thousands, of, things, and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” Mr. Trump told reporters earlier this month.
When asked if he condemned the racial imagery, the president responded, “Of course I do.”
Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican, the only Black Republican in the Senate and also the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, posted on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
Mr. Trump told reporters he later spoke with Mr. Scott.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat and the first Black leader of a party in Congress, wrote on X: “President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country. Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder.”
“Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry,” Mr. Jeffries wrote.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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