Former President Barack Obama is finally weighing in on the racist video shared by the sitting president—and he’s not buying the outrage machine driving it.
Obama, 64, addressed the controversy in a sit-down interview with journalist Brian Tyler Cohen published on Saturday. Instead of directly discussing the clip posted on 79-year-old President Donald Trump’s social media account, the former president used the moment to call out what he described as a broader collapse in political discourse.
Cohen didn’t ease the 44th president into the topic. He broached the subject by arguing that public rhetoric has “devolved into a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before,” noting that behavior once considered “disqualifying just a few years ago” is now not only tolerated—but “rewarded.”
He pointed to recent examples, including key officials in the Trump administration labeling victims of ICE-related shootings as “domestic terrorists,” before turning directly to the viral image Trump reposted on Truth Social—one depicting Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.
“Just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you—your face—on an ape’s body,“ Cohen said. Obama let out a small breath of laughter as Cohen recounted this.
”We’ve seen the devolution of the discourse. How do we come back from a place that we have fallen into?” Cohen asked.
Obama’s answer was measured—but pointed.
He said he believes “the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” dismissing the viral outrage cycle as nothing more than a tactic to grab “attention.” Obama said Trump’s racist post on Truth Social was merely “a distraction.”
The former president drew a sharp distinction between what dominates social media and what he says reflects real American values, describing the online chaos as “a clown show that’s happening on social media and on television.”
Still, he made clear the shift isn’t imaginary. Obama took direct aim at politicians and public figures amplifying inflammatory rhetoric, arguing that a basic sense of “decorum” has eroded. There’s no “shame about this,” he said, framing the shift as a loss of “propriety and respect for the office.”
Even so, he pushed back on the idea that the country itself has fully followed the downward spiral of some of its loudest voices.
Pointing to the unrest in Minneapolis following a series of deadly encounters involving federal agents, Obama said the public response tells a different story. The killings of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, on Jan. 7, and ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, later that month, sparked widespread protests across the Twin Cities, as thousands of federal agents flooded the area.
For Obama, the reaction—not the rhetoric—is what matters. He praised what he called an “extraordinary outpouring of organizing, community building, decency” among residents, framing the protests as a rejection of the political climate being fueled at the top.
“This is not the America we believe in,” he said, describing a public unwilling to succumb to the noise. Instead, he added, people are choosing to “fight back,” “push back,” and call out what they see.
The mounting backlash hasn’t been limited to the streets. Trump’s repost of the racist image has drawn condemnation from both sides of the aisle—though not equally fast.
Democrats quickly blasted the post, with several prominent figures calling it racist and unacceptable. But what raised eyebrows was the response from within Trump’s own party.
Sen. Tim Scott, a longtime Trump ally and former vice presidential contender, was among the first Republicans to break ranks, calling the post “the most racist thing” he has seen from the president and urging an apology.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins echoed the criticism, and GOP congressman Roger Wicker followed suit, labeling the video “totally unacceptable.”
Even so, the White House didn’t immediately walk it back. Initially, the administration appeared to stand by the post before eventually shifting blame to a staffer amid mounting pressure—a move that only fueled further criticism about accountability.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
