"Trump’s highly racist and offensive late-night Truth Social post depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes broke through the numbness barrier to register on the political Richter scale at a level few of his many previous insults ever achieved."
~ Robert Tait
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/06/trump-obama-video-racist
"On Air Force One, Trump said that he had posted it himself. When a reporter asked if he would apologize, he said, 'No, I didn’t make a mistake.'
While the post exhibited both the president’s vile racism and his failing impulse control, it also seems to have been an attempt to use racism to break the growing coalition against him."
~ Heather Cox Richardson
"As when they arrested Black journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort as well as Black protesters at a church while leaving white protesters free, Trump and his allies are hammering on racial fault lines. ...
Trump’s doubling down on racism reflects Americans’ growing disillusionment with him and his administration."
"The vile racist attack on the Obamas was not an aberration. It fits the pattern of Trump’s attack on DEI and purge of dozens of Black leaders within the administration."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/trump-posts-a-racist-video-and-then
"Donald Trump’s racist Truth Social post depicting former president Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes was not an aberration, a lapse, or a poorly vetted meme—it was the grotesque climax of a second term built on racial grievance as policy."
~ What Did Trump Do Today?
https://whatdiddonaldtrumpdotoday.substack.com/p/when-the-hood-comes-off
"He's always had this deeply felt white supremacy and anti-blackness that animates him. And in a moment like this, he will pull that card because he knows that there is a significant portion of his base for whom that works. And the danger, let me be very clear, a lot of people will say, after they stop lying about the fact that this was done, and that it's obviously racist."
~ Tim Wise
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-goes-full-racist-and-refuses
"They'll say, well, you know, it's just meme culture. It's edgy humor. I think that's how J.D. Vance likes to put it."
Robert P. Jones responds:
"All of that is right out of the KKK white supremacist playbook. That is what, and that's the hymnal that the president of the United States is singing from the during Black History Month."
Mary Trump replies to Karoline Leavitt of the ostentatious cross and "smug inhumanity," who attempted to gaslight those appalled at Trump's vile racist attack on the Obamas by saying we should focus on what "actually matters" and dispense with "fake outrage."
