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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he flies aboard Air Force One from Joint Base Andrews, Md., to West Palm Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 6, 2026<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nMark Schiefelbein\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAmong the critics was the Black Conservative Federation, a Trump aligned group that has maintained close ties to the president and issued a rare critical statement.<\/p>\n
“Depicting Black public figures in a dehumanizing manner, particularly imagery historically used to demean Black Americans, is unacceptable, offensive, and indefensible,” the group said in a statement, before also expressing its continued backing for Trump’s policies.<\/p>\n
Trump\u00a0told reporters he didn’t see the entire video before it was shared on his social media platform late Thursday night and suggested he won’t apologize for it.<\/p>\n
“I guess during the end of it, there was some kind of picture people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it,” Trump said. “I just, I looked at the first part, and it was really about voter fraud.”<\/p>\n
At the end of the video, the Obamas\u2019 faces appear abruptly on the bodies of apes without explanation with the song \u201cThe Lion Sleeps Tonight\u201d playing over it, before the clip ends back on imagery tied to election conspiracy video footage. The video was shared on the president\u2019s account at 11:44 p.m. ET Thursday, and the White House said around noon Friday that it had been taken down.<\/p>\n
Asked if he would apologize, Trump said, “No, I didn’t make a mistake. I mean … I look at a lot of, thousands of, things, and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.” Asked if he condemned the racist portion of the video, Trump said, “Of course I do.”<\/p>\n
The Obamas declined to comment when ABC News reached out to their representatives. The White House did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.<\/p>\n
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially dismissed the backlash, saying early Friday that the clip came from “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” and urged reporters to “stop the fake outrage.”<\/p>\n
Later Friday afternoon, a White House official told ABC News that a “staffer erroneously made the post.”<\/p>\n
Sen. Tim Scott\u00a0from South Carolina, the longest serving Black senator in U.S. history and one of the most prominent Black conservatives in Washington, publicly criticized the post.<\/p>\n
“Praying it was fake because it\u2019s the most racist thing I\u2019ve seen out of this White House,” Scott wrote on X. “The President should remove it.”<\/p>\n
Trump later told reporters he spoke with Scott by phone. During the call, Trump said he told Scott the video had been posted by a staffer by mistake and would be taken down, according to a source familiar with the conversation. The post was later removed.<\/p>\n
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WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 05: Chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) arrives for a hearing with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on February 05, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Committee met to hear testimony on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s Annual Report to Congress.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\nKevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Black Conservative Federation said in its statement,\u00a0“This content reflects a serious lapse in judgment by a staffer responsible for digital posting and should never have been created, approved, or shared.” The group added, “It is precisely this kind of careless and lazy behavior that undermines credibility, distracts from substantive policy progress, and damages trust with Black Americans who expect better from those entrusted with public platforms.”<\/p>\n
While condemning the post, the group sought to separate the incident from Trump\u2019s policy agenda and accomplishments from his first term, citing the White House’s HBCU investment; the Opportunity Zones tax incentives for distressed communities, the First Step Act criminal justice reform; and affordability initiatives as examples of what it described as Trump’s tangible benefits for Black communities.<\/p>\n
Diante Johnson, the group\u2019s founder and president, served on the Trump campaign\u2019s Black Voices for Trump advisory board during the 2020 election. Trump headlined the group\u2019s gala in February 2024.<\/p>\n
Other Trump-aligned Black conservatives defended the president more forcefully. CJ Pearson, a prominent Black conservative influencer who previously worked on Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign, said the post appeared to be a mistake.<\/p>\n
“This particular clip was obviously posted in error and I’m glad to see that it has since been deleted,” Pearson told ABC News. He added that the video did not change his view of Trump’s record with Black voters.<\/p>\n
“There is not a racist bone in President Trump’s body and an accidentally posted video clip does not diminish the fact that this President has done more for the Black community than any other President in American history,” he added.<\/p>\n
Florida Republican Rep.\u00a0Byron\u00a0Donalds’ team called the White House Friday about the post, an official with his gubernatorial campaign confirmed to ABC News.<\/p>\n
“Team\u00a0Byron\u00a0Donalds\u00a0called the White House and learned that a staffer had let POTUS down,” the campaign official said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Pierre Wilson, a senior Turning Point USA leader and founder of TPUSA RISE, said he would not have shared the video but believes the backlash has been overstated.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t have shared the video myself, but I also think the reaction to it is wildly overblown,” Wilson said. “I know President Trump personally. He’s not a racist. He’s a man with a blunt sense of humor and an equal opportunity approach when it comes to satire and criticism.”<\/p>\n
For many Trump aligned Black conservatives, the episode underscored the complexity of supporting a president they credit with policy progress, while navigating moments that reignite racial tensions and raise questions about representation, messaging and trust, especially during Black History Month.<\/p>\n
ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Isabella Murray, Hannah Demissie, Michelle Stoddart, Sarah Kolinovsky and Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several Black conservatives with ties to President Donald Trump\u2019s administration issued\u00a0rare public rebukes\u00a0after a video shared on the president\u2019s social media platform late Thursday night included…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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