Trump shared a racist "joke." That humor is an American tradition

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

When President Trump shared a racist video on his Truth Social account last week, the blowback was real. But the video is also part of a tradition that has existed in the U.S. since the early 1800s — of using "humor" to spread and crystallize racist ideals. On this episode, we speak with Raul Perez, the author of "The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy," who tells us how making fun of Black people was crucial to constructing "whiteness" — and perpetuating white supremacy — in the early days of the U.S.

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0:00.0	This message comes from MS Now.
0:02.2	On their new podcast, MS Now presents Clockit.
0:05.7	Washington Power Players, Simone Sanders Towns, and Eugene Daniels discuss how the latest political news and the catchiest cultural moments converge.
0:14.6	Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:18.6	What's good, y'all?
0:19.7	You're listening to Code Switch.
0:26.0	I'm Gene Demby, and I'm joined today by our senior editor, Leah Dinella. What's good with you, Leah?
0:40.5	Hey, Gene. Okay, so what are you bringing us today? Okay, so as you know, earlier this month, President Trump shared a video on truth social, and it was a video that essentially repeated a lot of conspiracy theories about election fraud. And then there were parts of it that were also sort of like
0:45.2	spoofing the lion king depicting Trump as king of the jungle.
0:56.0	Mm-hmm. And toward the end of that video, Barack and Michelle Obama show up, and they are portrayed as apes.
1:04.0	Yep.
1:05.0	Which, by the way, Anderson Cooper helpfully pointed out that the actual movie The Lion King does not have any apes. As a dad of a three and five year old, I haven't to spend a lot of time watching The Lion King these days, a lot of time.
1:16.7	And just want to point out there's no gorillas or apes and Lion King.
1:21.4	Yeah, I haven't watched the video, but I read about it. And I'm like, why? Like, this is the dumbest, most obvious, most basic form of racism we have in this country.
1:32.0	It's so stupid. Like, what is the point? Yes, exactly. And basically, everyone agrees with you. Like,
1:38.9	even within the president's own party, people were like, uh, whoa, that's really racist. Let's not do that.
1:45.6	Right. You know, you got Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina, and, you know, notably the only black Republican senator.
1:52.0	And he said on X, quote, praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've ever seen out of this White House, end quote, which, okay, whatever.
1:59.0	And other folks chimed in, too. You got Pete Ricketts of
2:02.2	Nebraska, another Republican senator saying, quote, even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable
2:08.5	person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a
2:12.9	mistake, remove this, and apologize, end quote. Did they remove it and apologize?
	...

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