Jasmine Crockett and more condemn Trump’s video depicting the Obamas as apes: ‘Most of us already know who Donald Trump is’

Rep. Jasmine Crockett and others express outrage and urge Republicans to act after Donald Trump posted a video of the Obamas as apes.

We are six days into Black History Month, and the internet has been set ablaze with outrage after President Donald Trump posted a video of Michelle and Barack Obama as apes to his Truth Social account on Thursday evening. 

On Friday morning, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, GOP Sen. Tim Scott, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and several others began to widely condemn the move as bigoted, racist, and disgraceful. 

“Donald Trump had the racist, bigoted audacity to post an AI-generated video depicting former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes,” Crockett wrote in a post on X. 

“Most of us already know who Donald Trump is,” she continued. “We already know there are no bounds to how low he’s willing to go. We know that he has no moral compass. We know that he is a disgrace. So while his behavior is not shocking, it is certainly disgusting and disturbing.”

Then she added, “But when will it be enough for those who continue to stand beside him? When will Republicans in Congress condemn his behavior? Your silence is complicity — and it is very loud.”

So far, one of the only GOP voices to speak out against the video has been GOP Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate. 

“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” he wrote on X. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the backlash “fake outrage” in a statement to CNN on Friday and claimed the clip has been taken out of context and is actually from a video that depicts Trump as King and Democrats as different characters from “The Lion King,” a film franchise that, to be clear, really only stars one monkey character.  

Meanwhile, Rep. Maxwell Frost called the clip “dangerous” and implored Republicans to develop a spine.  

“Reposting racist attacks on the Obamas is disgusting and dangerous. Trump knows exactly what he’s doing,” he wrote in a post. “Republicans need to find their spine and condemn this clearly and publicly.”

Newsom’s office also urged Republicans to act.

“Disgusting behavior by the President. Every single Republican must denounce this. Now,” he wrote on X. 

In a post on the same platform, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove called this a new low even for Trump, given that it is only the first week of Black History Month, and depicting a Black person as anything close to a primate is a long-understood, harmful, and racist trope.

“Trump has been spewing racism about the Obamas for over a decade,” she said. “To post this during Black History Month is a new low for a man whose bar is already in hell. Every single Republican in Congress must condemn this despicable behavior. Silence is complicity.”

Reverand and Harvard professor Cornell Williams Brooks, who was also the 18th president of the NAACP, mused about how we got here in a post on X.

“A world reviled president depicting the globally admired Obamas as monkeys no longer shocks Americans. Why? They accept he is forever lower than their lowest expectations,” he wrote.