U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, called out a meme shared by President Donald Trump as racist.
Controversy erupted after Trump’s Truth Social account shared a meme that called the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia into question, then abruptly cuts to a depiction of former President Barack Obama’s and First Lady Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto monkeys. The video was since taken down but can still be viewed on TMZ.
Scott, the only Black Republican currently serving in the Senate, issue a strong rebuke of the meme.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” the North Charleston Republican posted on X. “The President should remove it.”
Scott notably shared a post from the far-right AF Post account that showed a freeze frame of America’s first Black President and First Lady.
The post was taken down shortly after making news reports, but it wasn’t fake. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged its validity in a statement to TMZ that said the Obama images came from a different internet meme, but denied any racist intent.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” she said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Of note, the version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing in the background is not from The Lion King, but rather a recording from 1963 by The Tokens. There are also no monkeys in The Lion King of the type depicted in the video, and it takes place in the African savannah, not a jungle.
An image of Trump as a lion shared by Leavitt appears to be from an AI-generated video first shared by the Hardin County Republican Party and later investigated by the Republican Party of Kentucky for being racist.
“The post is vile and reprehensible and is directly adverse to all that we stand for as a party and a nation,” the Kentucky Party said in a statement last year.
