The White House downplays the posting and calls it “fake outrage”
U.S. President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform on Friday that depicts former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as a pair of monkeys.
The image appears briefly in one of the numerous conspiracy-theory videos that Trump frequently posts on his social media network. Most of the video is attributed to the ultraconservative website Patriot News Outlet and discusses the alleged manipulation of the 2020 elections, which Trump has been claiming ever since without any evidence.
However, at the 59-second mark, the video is interrupted by a brief animation that shows the faces of the Obamas superimposed on two apes for a couple of seconds before the original content resumes.
The animation is attributed to the X (formerly Twitter) user “xerias_x,” who celebrates the use of his animation on his account. It is part of an AI-generated video called “Trump: King of the Jungle,” dated October 24, 2025, a crude short film in which the faces of political leaders are inserted onto the bodies of animals. They all bow before Trump, whose face appears on the body of a lion.
In response, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the video’s posting and said that the criticism on social media was nothing more than “fake outrage.”
“This image is part of an internet video that depicts President Trump as the king of the jungle and the Democratic (opponents) as characters from ‘The Lion King,'” Leavitt said in a statement sent to U.S. media outlets.
“Please, let’s end the fake outrage and let’s report on things that actually matter to the American public,” the spokesperson added.
