A post with a video depicting the Obamas as monkeys has been removed from President Donald Trump's social media site Truth Social.
This is according to a White House official, according to Reuters.
The person explains that the post was made by mistake by a Trump employee.
In the video, the Obama couple's faces are briefly seen on dancing monkey bodies in a jungle.
The sequence led to harsh criticism from several politicians, who called the video racist.
In a post on X, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wrote:
- Disgusting behavior by the president. All Republicans should condemn this. Now.
Some Republicans also criticized the video, which deals with allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
Tim Scott, the only black senator in the Republican Party, called the video "the most racist thing I've seen coming from the White House," according to AFP on Friday.
The White House initially dismissed criticism of the video.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent a statement to the AFP news agency about the video, explaining the monkey sequence by saying it was a reference to a meme.
"It's from a meme video on the internet that depicts President Trump as the king of the jungle and Democrats as characters in The Lion King," Leavitt said in the statement.
"Please stop the false outcry and report on something today that actually matters to the American public," the press secretary added.
Trump has had a strained relationship with Obama over the years.
Last year, Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video of Obama, which showed the former president being arrested in the Oval Office and later found in a jail cell wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Barack Obama is the only black president in American history and served in office from 2009 to 2017.
Trump has repeatedly questioned whether Obama was born in the United States, even after the former US president released his full birth certificate in 2011.
Also in December, Trump was accused of racism when he referred to Somalis as "trash" who should not be in the United States.
/ritzau/
