- - Obamas, still silent on racist Trump post, cheer on US Olympic team

Josh Meyer, USA TODAYFebruary 7, 2026 at 10:12 PM

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Barack and Michelle Obama haven’t responded to President Donald Trump’s racist social media post portraying them as apes in the jungle.

But on Feb. 6, they posted a shared message of encouragement for American athletes competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics just underway in Italy.

“To all the athletes representing @TeamUSA: I’m so proud of you,” Obama wrote on X about the Milano Cortina 2026 games. “Your talent and perseverance have brought you to this moment, and Michelle and I will be joining Americans from across the country cheering you on.”

The post was seen by 41 million people as of Saturday morning.

The Obamas have rarely responded to Trump’s provocations, dating back to when the real estate mogul first gained headlines as a dark horse political candidate with “birther” falsehoods suggesting Obama was not a native-born U.S. citizen but was actually from Africa.

But given the near-global condemnation of Trump for his latest post, the Obamas’ congratulatory message for the athletes was seen as something of a response by their many supporters.

“Show us you're unbothered without telling us you're unbothered.... #Respect #ARealPresident,” the NAACP posted on X.

“Today I GOTTA give some love to the FIRST Black President of America @POTUS44 @BarackObama and @FLOTUS44 @MichelleObama true class and excellence personified,” Eldridge Recasner, a former NBA guard and TV basketball analyst, posted on X under the message #BlackHistoryMonth, which started at the beginning of February. “Guess some have a right to be jealous of them as they set the Bar HIGH at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave”

The video, among dozens of posts on Trump’s Truth Social account in the late hours of Feb. 5 and early hours of Feb. 6, provoked a firestorm of criticism, and conflicting accounts from the White House as to exactly how the racist trope was retweeted by the president’s account.

The White House initially dismissed criticism that the Obama video was racist and said it is from a meme depicting Trump and the Obamas as characters from the movie “The Lion King.” But the post was removed after about 12 hours and a White House official later told USA TODAY a staffer erroneously posted it.

The brief portion of the video with the Obamas appears to have been created by artificial intelligence. It depicts the bodies of two apes with the faces of the former president and first lady. Apes are flying around in the background of what appears to be a jungle.

Critics, including Republican lawmakers, have roundly condemned Trump for the post.

Sen. Tim Scott, a close Trump ally and prominent Black Republican from South Carolina who is leading the Senate’s campaign efforts this year, wrote he was “praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”

But Trump has refused to apologize for the post, saying he didn’t view the entire video before passing it along to staff.

"I look at a lot of, thousands, of things," Trump told reporters while traveling on Air Force One to Florida on Feb. 6. "And I looked at the beginning of it, it was fine."

Asked about calls from GOP lawmakers for him to apologize, Trump said he didn't plan to. He later said "of course I do" when asked if he condemned the racist part of the video.

But, Trump said, “I didn't make a mistake."

'When they go low, we go high'

Initially, an Obama spokeswoman said the former president had no response. The Obama Foundation later posted a video compilation of the Obamas talking about their love for each other and shared values.

It's part of a pattern of conduct for the couple that's perhaps best defined by Michelle Obama's oft-quoted convention speech during the 2016 election as former secretary of state Hillary Clinton campaigned against Trump. “When they go low," she said to thunderous applause, "we go high.”

She has since said that the phrase doesn't mean doing nothing: “It’s about making your work count and your voice heard in a way that’s authentic to you and constructive for others.”

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called the video “utterly despicable” and said in a statement that Trump was trying to distract the public from bad polls, economic conditions and the latest release of Justice Department files on disgraced late financer and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“You know who isn’t in the Epstein files? Barack Obama,” he said. “You know who actually improved the economy as president? Barack Obama.”

“Every elected official, every corporation, every organization, if you are silent now, if you are not condemning the behavior of the President of the United States, history will remember,” Johnson said in an X post. “And I assure, our community will remember as well.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Obamas silent on Trump post. Instead, they cheer on Team USA

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