Washington: US President Donald Trump has drawn sharp criticism after sharing a video containing racist imagery that depicted former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.
The one-minute video, posted on Trump's Truth Social platform on Thursday, repeats false claims that ballot-counting firm Dominion Voting Systems helped rig the 2020 presidential election against him. Near the end of the clip, the Obamas briefly appear with their faces superimposed on monkeys for around one second.
By early Friday, the video had attracted more than 1,000 likes on the platform.
The post prompted swift condemnation from senior Democrats. The office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a leading Trump critic and a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, denounced the video in a statement on social media.
"Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now," Newsom's press office said in a post on X.
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Ben Rhodes, a former senior national security adviser and close aide to Barack Obama, also criticised the imagery, describing it as racist.
"Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history," Rhodes wrote on X.
Since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump has increasingly shared hyper-realistic but fabricated images and videos across Truth Social and other platforms. Many of these posts portray the president in a flattering light while mocking or attacking political opponents.
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Last year, Trump shared an AI-generated video showing Barack Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and later depicted behind bars in an orange prison jumpsuit. He also posted a fabricated clip of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is Black, wearing a fake moustache and a sombrero, which Jeffries described as racist.