Obama Breaks Silence On Trump's "Deeply Troubling" Racist Ape Video

Former President Obama Campaigns With New Jersey And Virginia Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Ahead Of Elections On Tuesday — Source: Win McNamee / Getty

President Trump’s most egregiously racist move thus far was posting a racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama, and it seemed to go unanswered until now.

Many of his most diehard Republican supporters even said he should apologize, but as he refused to acknowledge the blunder, President Obama decided to speak out as the days wore on.

In an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama starts on a positive note, saying that most Americans do in fact “find this behavior deeply troubling.” Yet that gets lost amid the attention and the loudness of the administration’s brashness.

Traveling around the country, most people he meets “still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness,” but somehow that comes to a screeching halt at the White House.

“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” he begins. “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. So that’s been lost.”

Obama’s response comes after Trump,—at the beginning of Black History Month no less— took to social media to post a video of his and Michelle’s face on the body of apes. Most of the clip was in support of voter fraud being the reason behind his 2020 presidential election loss, but the racist clip came at the very end.

Trump refused to admit it was a mistake and even tried to blame it on a White House staffer. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to downplay it as well, instructing Americans to “please stop the fake outrage.”

Obama also talked about ICE’s presence in Minneapolis, calling out their “rogue behavior” that was “deeply concerning” and “troubling.”

He explained, “All the federal agents, ICE agents, were being deployed without any clear guidelines, training. Pulling people out of their homes, using 5-year-olds to try to bait their parents. All the stuff that we saw, teargassing crowds who were simply standing there, not breaking any laws.”

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was also mentioned, and while Trump made the performance political and divisive, Obama doesn’t see it that way at all.

“It wasn’t political,” he said. “It resonated. It was smart. Because it wasn’t preaching. It was showing. It was demonstrating and displaying. This is what a community is.”

He then explained how Bad Bunny painted the picture for everyone to understand without needing to speak Spanish.

He said, “And people who did not speak Spanish, and have never been to Puerto Rico, they saw that elderly woman serving a drink, and the kids dancing with their grandmas, and it was intergenerational, and it was a reminder of what Dr. King called the beloved community can look like.”

See the ongoing backlash to the ape video Trump posted below.