Barack Obama has responded to the racist video uploaded by Donald Trump’s Truth Social account last week that depicted the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, as monkeys. Speaking to Brian Taylor Cohen on Saturday’s episode of his podcast, Obama said, “What’s true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about it among people who would feel that you have some sort of decorum.”
Obama emphasized that it is “important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior very disturbing.”
He continued: “You know, it’s true that it attracts attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But, you know, as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people. They still believe in decency, in courtesy, in kindness. And there’s this kind of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television.”
“And what is true is that there does not seem to be any shame about this among the people who used to feel that you have some kind of decorum. And a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? So that was lost,” Obama also said.
But the former president also said that he has reason to hope.
“The reason I indicate that I don’t think the majority of the American people approve of this is because ultimately, the answer will come from the American people. And we saw that in Minnesota and Minneapolis.”
The “unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis [and] San Paul” resulted in “the extraordinary execution of organization, community building, decency, neighbors, buying groceries for people, accompanying children to school, teachers who stood up for their children,” said Obama.
“Not just randomly, but in a systematic and organized way, the citizens say, ‘This is not the America we believe in, and we are going to fight back, and we are going to push back with the truth, and with cameras, and with peaceful protests,’ and they shed light on the kind of behavior that, you know, in the past we have seen in authoritarian countries and dictatorships but we have not seen in a dictatorship. seen in America.”
Trump has repeatedly refused to apologize for the video. “That was a video about, you know, voter fraud, and a pretty long video, and they had a little piece that had to do with ‘The Lion King,'” he told reporters this week.
He continued: “It was very good—it was shown all over the place, long before it was posted. But that was a very strong piece, and I’m sure you’ve seen it, a very strong piece about voter fraud. And the piece you’re talking about has been all over the place many times, I believe for years.”
The reaction to the video was very negative on both sides of the aisle, and the Trump team ultimately deleted it after it went live for 12 hours.
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