President Donald Trump has embarked on a bizarre posting spree touting his friendship with Black celebrities following his racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama.
The president took to social media on Wednesday morning to post a series of clips showing him with everyone from ear-biting boxer Mike Tyson, convicted felon Diddy and accused child molester Michael Jackson.
“How quickly people forget. So Sad! President DJT,” Trump wrote in an apparent effort to bolster his credentials with the Black community.
One post, sarcastically titled “A Timeline of Trump’s bigotry,” featured a TikTok video with various images, from the president kissing Black babies and hugging Oprah Winfrey, to shaking Will Smith’s hand and hanging out with Snoop Dogg.
Another featured an old video of Trump on Oprah Winfrey’s former TV show discussing foreign policy and declaring that he would “make our allies pay their fair share.”
“Oprah wanted Trump to run for president in 1988 on the same exact policies he holds today,” wrote the Truth Social user who originally posted the clip. “Interesting.”
And another post featured a clip promoting how Trump stood by Michael Jackson after he had been accused of child molestation.
“If there was one person Trump stayed loyal to it was Michael Jackson,” it said.
The president’s wild social media spree comes after he was last week forced to take down a vile video in which the faces of former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were superimposed onto the bodies of apes.
The video sparked an immediate backlash - including from key Trump ally Tim Scott, the only Black member of the Senate, who described it as the “most racist thing” he’d seen coming out of the White House.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially tried to justify the actions of her boss, claiming it was merely “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.”
However, a few hours later, the post was gone and the White House claimed a staffer “erroneously made the post.”
The Obama video invoked anger on both sides of the aisle, given that comparisons of Black people to apes or monkeys have long been used by white supremacists and extremist groups.
During his political career, Trump has singled out Black athletes who knelt during the national anthem to protest systemic racism, pushed “birther” conspiracy theories about Barack Obama, and last year shared digitally altered images and videos of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a fake mustache and a sombrero—imagery Jeffries publicly described as racist.
Nonetheless, Trump insists “I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.”
Asked about the post on Friday, the president rejected suggestions he made a mistake, telling reporters that the first part of the video was about election rigging.
“I didn’t make a mistake,” he told reporters. “I mean, you give — I look at a lot of — thousands of things. And I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine…. I guess it was a takeoff on The Lion King. And certainly it was a — a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.”
