WH Downplayed Racist Video Trump Shared, Then Blamed Staffer
The Lead with Jake Tapper
CNN
3.5 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 83 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | And of all the times to post that, Black History Month, the lead starts right now. |
| 0:08.4 | What many are calling a new low for President Trump, and those are the Republicans, posting a video that includes racist imagery of the Obama's as apes ahead the ridiculous ways. The White House tried to spin this, |
| 0:24.0 | not once, but twice. Plus, the FBI surging teams to Tucson, Arizona in the search for Nancy |
| 0:30.1 | Guthrie, beloved mother of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie. CNN is also on the ground with the very |
| 0:35.5 | latest. And the $8.5 million lawsuit that holds Uber accountable for the actions of one of its drivers, |
| 0:43.0 | how this case could open the floodgates for others. |
| 0:52.0 | Welcome to the lead. |
| 0:52.8 | I'm Jake Tappell, we begin in our politics leave. |
| 0:55.2 | President Trump facing bipartisan outrage over racist imagery he posted of the Obama's as apes. |
| 1:02.3 | A video one might normally hope is confined to just the accounts of trolls in the darkest corners of the internet. |
| 1:08.0 | Yet it was shared on truth social by the President of these United |
| 1:12.4 | States to his millions of followers. Now, we don't want to dignify the racist meme itself by giving |
| 1:17.2 | the video more time than it deserves. We're only going to show it so you can see for yourself. |
| 1:21.1 | It's a still image from the video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady |
| 1:26.4 | Michelle Obama as apes, an age-old |
| 1:29.3 | blatantly racist trope. The song that plays in the background is The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The |
| 1:34.1 | post has now been deleted after remaining online for roughly 12 hours. Neither the President nor |
| 1:40.2 | the White House has apologized for its posting. Initially, the White House not only downplayed it, |
| 1:45.3 | White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt in a statement seemed outraged |
| 1:48.5 | that people were even asking about it. |
| 1:50.2 | She said, quote, this is from an internet meme video |
| 1:53.1 | depicting President Trump as the king of the jungle |
... |
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