White House Keeps Staffer After Racist Obamas Video

Donald Trump said that no staff member, not even the alleged staffer who reportedly posted a racist video depicting Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes to the president’s official Truth Social page, has been fired. 

Oh, and he added that he has no intention of apologizing to the former president and first lady for the images being shared on his personal account. 

Trump told reporters Thursday that he defended the overall post, noting that the critics were simply focusing on the wrong part of the video, as they were only mentioning the racist part and not the overall message. 

“That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud,” Trump said. Trump, who has a notoriously short attention span, added that it was a “fairly long video” and noted that the part of the video that depicted the Obamas as apes was just a small portion and was really a reference to The Lion King. According to Trump, the clip had been around for years before the alleged staffer shared it on his social media page. 

“It’s been shown all over the place, long before that was posted,” he added, calling the obviously racist video a “very strong piece on voter fraud.”

Remember that when the video was initially shared almost a week ago, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended it. Criticism didn’t just come from Democrats; Republican Sen. Tim Scott called it the “most racist thing” he had seen from the White House and urged its removal, Deadline reports. 

The video was taken down, and it was blamed on a staffer, though no one ever noted the name of said staffer. Trump added that he was aware of the post, adding that he ordered it to be uploaded. 

“I look at thousands of things,” Trump said at the time. “I looked at the beginning of it — it was fine.”

Continuing the tradition of no accountability within the White House for anything, Trump has taken no disciplinary action against the staffer and effectively ended any further discussion of the incident, noting that the post was removed, the alleged staffer took responsibility for it, and the president continues to stand by his decision to share it. 

And he won’t be apologizing for it.

See the continued fallout from the video below.