Donald Trump's 'softer touch' hits a snag with Obama ape video meme

The ongoing softening of President Donald Trump hit a major snag Friday after Trump's Truth Social account posted a video meme depicting his first Oval Office predecessors Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

Lasting about a minute long, the video repeated unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations from the 2020 presidential election – which Trump lost to Joe Biden – before the recording quickly shifted to a clip of the Obamas.

Trump told NBC News anchor Tom Llamas on Wednesday, Feb. 4, that his White House could offer a "softer touch" on immigration after the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti amid anti-ICE protests last month.

And Llamas revealed that Trump had called with well wishes for the family of Nancy Guthrie, the missing and allegedly abducted mother of the network's morning show star Savannah Guthrie.

The Obama video comes after a change of tune for Trump, who was offering a lighter approach to major issues facing the country this week. The post also arrives ahead of a major test for the president in November's midterm elections. Republicans lost 40 House seats in 2018, and contests across the country will be seen as a referendum on his presidency.

Throughout Trump's second term, and as recently as last week at an event with rap star Nicki Minaj, his administration has touted electoral gains made with Black voters in his 2024 election win over then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Karoline Leavitt: 'Report on something that actually matters'

Some members of Trump's own party decried the post, from the Senate's only Black Republican, Tim Scott, to Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a must-win swing seat in the northern New York City suburbs.

Imagery illustrating Black people as apes, monkeys and other primates has long been considered racist in America. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially dismissed criticism of the video, which Scott called "racist" Friday.

"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King," Leavitt said in a statement to USA TODAY on Friday. "Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public."

For their part, the Obamas have taken a different style to handling Trump during his second term.

Barack Obama has strategized against Trump with rare and carefully planned public responses using his signature social media statements. He responded to Pretti's death in Minneapolis and unrest in the Middle East while coming off the sidelines for California's mid-decade redistricting initiative which likely curbed potential Democratic losses in response to Republican efforts in Texas.

Michelle Obama has avoided Trump, focusing on brand-building and reinvention. After skipping Trump's second inauguration, Obama became more candid in public about her marriage, her time in the White House, motherhood and self-discovery in her sixties.

She launched a podcast "IMO" with her brother Craig Robinson last year and wrote a book about her style, "The Look," released a day before the one-year anniversary of Trump's win over Harris.

By noon ET on Feb. 6, the video of the couple depicted as apes disappeared. The White House said the post was erroneously posted by a staffer.

(This story was updated with new information.)

Contributing: Melina Khan, Joey Garrison, Zac Anderson