Trump shares doctored image of Obama and Michele with graffiti-covered Air Force One

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Sunday (local time) posted a digitally altered image on Truth Social showing former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama boarding an Air Force One jet covered in graffiti.

The post on Truth Social depicts the Obamas waving at the top of the aircraft stairs. The plane is defaced with slogans including “Yes We Can”, “Obama”, “BLM”, and the Arabic phrase “alhamdulillah”, meaning “praise be to God”.

This comes months after US President Donald Trump on February 6 deleted a ‘racist’ video from his Truth Social account hours after posting it, following a widespread bipartisan backlash.

According to CNN, the video, shared late February 5 night, depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle, invoking a longstanding racist trope. The post was removed nearly 12 hours later after sharp criticism from lawmakers across party lines, including several close Republican allies.

Just before noon on February 6, the White House blamed a staffer for the post and said it had been taken down. “A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” a White House official told CNN. Earlier, the administration had dismissed criticism as “fake outrage.”

The backlash included condemnation from GOP Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, who called the post racist and urged its removal. In a post on X, Scott said, “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it”.

CNN reported that the controversy put the White House in damage-control mode, with officials and allies contacting lawmakers and media outlets to insist that Trump was not personally involved. One White House adviser told CNN, “The president was not aware of that video, and was very let down by the staffer who put it out.”

The Obamas appeared briefly near the end of the deleted video, which otherwise promoted false claims about the 2020 US election. Their faces were superimposed on the bodies of apes, accompanied for a moment by the song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’. (ANI)