Barack Obama responded to the racist video posted by Donald Trump’s Truth Social account last week that depicted the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes. While speaking to Brian Taylor Cohen on the Saturday episode of his podcast, Obama said, “What is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum.”
Obama emphasized that it is “important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling.”
He continued: “You know, it is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But, you know, as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people. They still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness. And there’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television.”
“And what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum. And a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? So that’s been lost,” Obama also said.
But the former president also said he has reason to be hopeful.
“The reason I point out that I don’t think the majority of the American people approve of this is because ultimately, the answer is going to come from the American people. And we just saw this in Minnesota and Minneapolis.”
The “unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis [and] St. Paul” has resulted in “the extraordinary outpouring of organizing, community building, decency, neighbors, buying groceries for folks, accompanying children to school, teachers who were standing up for their kids,” Obama said.
“Not just randomly, but in a systematic, organized way, citizens saying, ‘This is not the America we believe in, and we’re going to fight back, and we’re going to push back with the truth, and with cameras, and with peaceful protests,’ and shining a light on the sort of behavior that, you know, in the past we’ve seen in authoritarian countries and we’ve seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America.”
Trump has repeatedly refused to apologize for the video. “That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud, and a fairly long video, and they had a little piece that had to do with ‘The Lion King,’” he told reporters this week.
He continued: “It’s been very well—it’s been shown all over the place, long before that was posted. But that was a very strong, and I’m sure you saw it, very strong piece on voter fraud. And the piece that you’re talking about was all over the place many times, I believe for years.”
Reaction to the video was strongly negative on both sides of the aisle, and Trump’s team ultimately deleted it after it was live for 12 hours.
