Vice President JD Vance expressed that he doesn’t believe the president owes an apology for sharing a video that included a racist portrayal of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
While speaking to reporters before hopping on Air Force Two for a trip to Azerbaijan on Wednesday, Feb. 11, Vance reiterated the White House’s take on the incident. He noted that a staffer had posted the video without watching it all the way through before it was taken down.
“It’s not a real controversy,” Vance stated. “We have much, much more real problems to focus on.”
The depiction of the Obamas was part of a longer manipulated video that featured the faces of various Democrats on different animals, alongside Trump’s face on a lion, branding him the “King of the Jungle.” Walking next to that lion is Pepe the Frog, a well-known internet meme that got labeled as a hate symbol when it was co-opted by the alt-right during the 2016 election.
This portrayal has faced significant backlash for being racist, with some Republican lawmakers also criticizing the video. The imagery representing Black individuals as apes, monkeys, or other primates has been recognized as racist in America for a long time.
The video, which was posted on Truth Social on Feb. 5, was deleted approximately 12 hours later.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt first brushed off the backlash in a statement to USA TODAY, labeling the reaction as “fake outrage,” claiming that the Obama illustration stemmed from a meme showing Trump and the Obamas as characters from “The Lion King.” Hours later, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Feb. 6 that he had only viewed the initial part of the video, missing the segment featuring the Obamas.
The president explained that he had forwarded the video to one of his staff members to post, saying, “somebody slipped and missed a very small part.” He mentioned that he had no intention of apologizing.