Obamas seemingly fire back at Trump’s ape video with social media post

WASHINGTON, DC: Amid mounting outrage over a now-deleted AI video showing Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, the former first couple appears to be striking back at President Donald Trump.

The brief clip, shared on Trump’s Truth Social account, drew swift condemnation from critics who called it racist and offensive. The White House later said a staff member was responsible for posting the video.

The Obamas’ foundation celebrates their love after the apes video

Barack and Michelle Obama seemed to fire back at Trump with a heartwarming social media post celebrating their love story, shared on the official Instagram page of their foundation.

The post follows Trump’s social media video depicting the Obamas as apes, which sparked immediate backlash and condemnation online.

The video began with Barrack’s claim saying, “Michelle Lavon Robinson, girl of the South Side. For the past 25 years, you have not only been my wife and mother of my children who have been my best friend.”

Michelle added at another event, “Married for 30 years. Sounds like a long time.”

A video then showed Barack recalling, “The first time I met Michelle, I was at a summer associated law firm. She was already a young attorney. She was cute. She had a great sense of humor, a great presence about it. I figured out pretty quickly that I wanted to ask her on our first date. I took her to the art museum and the art Institute.”

As pictures of them together appeared, Michelle said, “We spent the whole day together. He was showing me all facets of this character, and we took a nice long walk on Michigan Avenue.” Barack added with a smile, “Uh, it's got a romance.”

Barack reflected on their family: “What I love about my wife, more than anything, is she knows the best and most important Legacy of anybody's life is making sure that your kids turn out. All right, they have good values. They're kind, they're caring.” Michelle said, “I'm proud of Barack, not just because he's a wonderful president, but he's maintained a solid foundation for our family.”

He concluded, “This was part of the deal that if we were going to do this together, there were some things we would sacrifice for. There were other things we wouldn't and making sure we were there for each other. That's something we wouldn't sacrifice.”

The foundation captioned the video, “Love is wonderful,” letting it serve as the couple’s response without issuing a direct public statement.

Trump says he didn’t watch the full video

Trump denied any wrongdoing following the backlash over the AI-generated video of the Obamas. When asked if he planned to apologize for the post, he replied bluntly, “No, I didn’t make a mistake,” explaining that he had only watched the beginning of the clip before it was shared.

He said the portion he viewed focused on alleged voter fraud during the 2020 election and that he was unaware of the offensive imagery that appeared later.

“I saw it, and I just looked at the first part. It was about voter fraud in Georgia — there was a lot of voter fraud, 2020 voter fraud,” Trump said. “I didn’t see the whole thing.”

He added, “I guess toward the end there was some kind of picture that people didn’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it.”

When a reporter asked whether he would fire the staff member who shared the video, Trump responded, “No. I looked at it. I didn’t see the whole thing. I gave it to the people, they posted it.” He noted that the video was removed once the controversial content was discovered: “We took it down as soon as we found out about it,” he said. “But that was voter fraud that nobody talks about. They don’t like to talk about that post."

Trump also suggested that the ending of the video resembled a parody. “I mean, I look at a lot of thousands of things, and I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine,” he said. “I guess it was a take off on the Lion King."