President Donald Trump took down a post that was widely condemned as plainly racist.
The 79-year-old president shared a video created by the conservative Patriot News Outlet that had an image of Barack and Michelle Obama's smiling faces superimposed on the bodies of apes in a jungle, with a clip of the 1961 song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," by the Tokens, and even some of his Republican allies called on him to remove the post.
At some point before noon, in the face of hours of criticism on cable news and social media, Trump or his team deleted his post on Truth Social.
"A senior White House staffer erroneously made the post," a senior White House official told CNN. "It has been taken down.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) had called on Trump to remove the post, which he called "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House," and other Republican lawmakers publicly criticized the president over it, although the White House defended his post.
"This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from [T]he Lion King," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement.
