One of the many seedy guiding principles Donald Trump acquired from his mentor Roy Cohn was \u201cadmit nothing, deny everything,\u201d and today that approach was evident as the former Apprentice host tried to wiggle out of a vile AI generated video posted on his Truth Social depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t make a mistake,\u201d the self-declared \u201cleast racist president \u2026in a long time\u201d Trump said tonight of apologizing to the former First Couple about the racist post. Still putting the blame for the posting on an unnamed lower-level staffer, POTUS was talking to reporters on Air Force One traveling Friday from DC to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at a lot of, thousands of things, I looked at the beginning of it, it was fine,\u201d he added, according to pool reports. \u201cIf you look at where it came from, I guess it was a take off of the Lion King.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch on Deadline<\/p>\n
Never one to take responsibility or admit knowledge of things if they go wrong or get blowback like this late night post of the Obamas did from almost everyone, even some hardcore MAGAheads, Trump also said: \u201cI didn\u2019t see the whole thing. I guess during the end of it there was some kind of a picture that people don\u2019t like. I wouldn\u2019t like it either.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took it down as soon as we found out,\u201d Trump insisted on the plane Friday. The Republican did reply \u201cOf course I do\u201d when asked tonight if he repudiated the racist message in the video. Still, the statement that the video was taken down quickly is not entirely true once its obvious depiction got a fierce reception.<\/p>\n
First posted late last year by a \u201c@XERIAS_X\u201d account, the 55-second video portrays Trump as a lion, while Hillary Clinton and now NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani are depicted as a warthog and hyena respectively. In case, there was anything vague about where this was all going, a two-second scene appears at the end of the video with the Obamas as apes, dancing in the jungle to \u201cThe Lion Sleeps Tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Condemned by the likes of would-be 2028 candidates Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California andf Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania plus every other Democrat in the land, the loud dog whistling caused even Trump loyalist Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to blast the video. Running to be the next Governor of South Carolina, Scott tweeted he was \u201cPraying it was fake because it\u2019s the most racist thing I\u2019ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calling something the \u201cmost racist thing\u201d from Trump is really calling it out. The fact that the posting came six days into Black History Month and as more questions about connections distraction king Trump and others in his orbit had to now deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein did not seem like a coincidence.<\/p>\n
Earlier the White House took its usual counter attack stance (another Cohn rule), with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defending the post. \u201cThis is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King,\u201d Leavitt said. \u201cPlease stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Deadline noted earlier Friday, there aren\u2019t any apes in Disney\u2019s Lion King, so the WH response is a bit off, to say the least. Nonetheless, as a the fallout increased, the administration deleted the offensive material . Soon after they announced \u201cA White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putting the blame on staff is nothing new for Trump \u2014 he\u2019s been doing it for a least a decade if not more.<\/p>\n
The young intern who accidentally did a Retweet apologizes. \u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2015<\/p>\n
Tonight Trump asserted he knew what was going on among his staff, even though he was contending he didn\u2019t know what they were posting in his name. \u201c\u201dI liked the beginning, I saw it, and just passed it on,\u201d he said, not giving any indication the person who did post it would suffer any consequences. \u201cI didn\u2019t do it by the way, this was done by someone else, it was a re-Truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is a certain truth is that while Trump, who started his political career attacking Hawaii-born Barack Obama\u2018s citizenship and American birth, was declaring he hadn\u2019t done something that he had done, the former POTUS and FLOTUS were taking the high road.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama & Michelle Obama on stage at 2024 Democratic National Convention in the former First Lady\u2019s hometown of Chicago, Ill (Photo:Getty)<\/p>\n
Obama, who Trump clearly fears, and the ex-First Lady took to social media Friday, but ignored Trump and the despicable video. Instead they both praised American athletes participating in the XXV Winter Games that opened today in Italy.<\/p>\n
To all the athletes representing @TeamUSA: I’m so proud of you. Your talent and perseverance have brought you to this moment, and Michelle and I will be joining Americans from across the country cheering you on. \u2014 Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 7, 2026<\/p>\n
Good luck to all the extraordinary athletes representing @TeamUSA at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics! It\u2019s been so inspiring to follow your journeys to the world stage, and we’ll be cheering you on as you compete in Italy. \u2014 Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) February 7, 2026<\/p>\n
Giving a sense how Team Trump is viewed by many outside the USA, Team USA was cheered loudly during the opening ceremony of this year\u2019s Olympics. On the other hand, Vice President JD Vance was equally loudly booed and jeered as he stood in the VIP section of Milan\u2019s San Siro Stadium before its 60,000-strong crowd.<\/p>\n
Source: RhinoEasy News<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the many seedy guiding principles Donald Trump acquired from his mentor Roy Cohn was \u201cadmit nothing, deny everything,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhinoeasy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}