Transcription
Over a racist video President Trump shared on his social media platform last night, a White House official is now telling MSNBC a staffer erroneously made the post, but it was 12 hours before it was taken down. Also, I want to make clear that we would not the President posted it and to inform this important conversation.
You can see this post. It depicts former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle. It's at the end of a video promoting false claims about voting machines and the 2020 presidential election.
In a statement responding to the backlash, the White House Press Secretary said, "This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage."
None of the rest of that video is included in what Trump posted, only the Obamas. Joining me now, Symone Sanders Townsend, MSNBC co-host of "The Weeknight" and former chief spokesperson for Vice President Harris. Eugene Daniels, MSNBC senior Washington correspondent and co-host of "The Weeknd." They are also the hosts of a brand new MSNBC podcast, "Clock It" with "Sometimes, and I think it's a little bit with Symone and Eugene."
Symone, as a former communications director, what do you make of the White House statement?
Chris, they think we haven't seen "The Lion King." There are no apes in "The Lion King." There is not one. There's not one ape in the movie. So let's just be for real right now. That was. There's not an ape in "The Lion King." So. I, I, I would have never put out a statement like that. I would have, I would have. The one time somebody thought the person I worked for did say something that was racist and inhumane, I went to my principal and encouraged a principal to apologize and explain to them why what they said was problematic. Okay? So I don't, I just.
Eugene, I cannot grasp this. This is the last thing I'll say. It is not racist because it. It is offensive. It is offensive because it is inherently racist. The trope about depicting Black people as animals goes all the way back to white Europeans looking for a justification for colonization and the enslavement of African people. And it gained prominence in the 1700s and 1800s, and it became a racial, like a scientific theory. I'm using air quotes. And it was a mainstream theory that put a hierarchy that said white Europeans were at the top and Africans were at the bottom. And apes, depiction of apes was very central to this theory. They were at the bottom. They were closer to primitive beings such as apes. Therefore, Black people, specifically in that time, Africans were more, better suited for forced labor and domination. So it is racist because the root of this theory, this trope, this joke that the White House is talking about is rooted in the ability to dominate, rape, pillage, and inflict violence upon Black people.
I will say, Eugene, that this post is being condemned from both sides of the aisle, including Republican Senator Tim Scott, saying it's the most racist thing he's seen out of this White House. The implication, of course, is that it's not the only racist thing he's seen out of this White House. But I wonder if you think there is some line with this that has been crossed. And by the way, the posts that have been racist in the past have been posted on official government accounts. These are not individuals within the government who are posting things on their private accounts. I'm sorry, Eugene, go ahead.
No, that is a really important point because that means that we all paid them to post a racist thing on the internet, right? That is a really important point. You're right. We're hearing from Tim Scott. We're hearing from Mike Lawler, some Republicans who have issues with this. Tim Scott, of course, being the only Black senator on the Republican side and being someone who has to accept that. The world has to accept that. This is a man who spent money to take out a full-page ad calling for the execution of five Black and brown men, now the Exonerated Five. This is someone who who spent months and years saying that Barack Obama was not born here, that the racist trope about this, you know, this interloper who doesn't belong here, who is someone who is not a part. That's what he spent his time doing.
The idea from this White House that this was an accident, the idea that this was just a meme that was posted. This is who Donald Trump. I think we all have a lot of. If it's true that a staffer posted it, right? I think we all have a lot of questions about that. If it's true that a staffer posted it, this person and believed that it represented the thoughts and the feelings of the president that they serve. And that says a lot, that they thought it would be okay. It was up for 12 hours because they do not. They don't care. They think it is okay to be racist and treat Black and brown people terribly in order to, quote unquote, own the libs. I think we just have to be really honest about what that means because it means it's a lot about where we are as a country and how we're going to operate the rest of this presidency and really the Republican Party moving forward.
Well, let's talk about what else is happening right now. I'm going to take a look at. I mentioned this image of the Obamas was inside a video focused on false theories about election fraud in the 2020, 2020 election. Trump, of course, has come under fire for saying he wants to nationalize elections in 15, he calls crooked states because, quote, these people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally. What is Donald Trump trying to accomplish here? It is, it is. I'm sorry, I just have to say it's the sixth day of Black History Month. This is too much. I just think we need a do-over.
So this idea, first of all, I do think he is trying to seal the election. And I'm not talking about manipulating votes when I say that. So let's just be clear. What I'm talking about is the actions that the president himself and the people around the president have taken. The executive order that he put out about elections at the beginning of this presidency, the call to not Georgia but to Texas last year asking them to find him five more more seats. That is what kicked off this mid-decade redistricting to manufacture more seats to manipulate the voters because the president does not believe that he could win as the maps currently stand. I'm talking about the election deniers that have been given roles within the Department of Homeland Security, made-up roles over election integrity. One of the ways he will try to steal the election is to. He's asking these states for voter rolls across the country. Why do you need the voter rolls? Well, what do voter rolls contain? They contain personal information such as your Social Security number, names, and whatnot. Potentially that could be used to target people with misinformation and disinformation. We already know from reporting that that has at least two staffers from DOJ, according to Bloomberg reporting. A whistleblower noted they had referred them, referred the actions up to disciplinary chains because those individuals had given sensitive information to a voter advocacy group. I highly doubt that those people were looking to elect Democrats. So, like, the going in and seizing ballots out of Fulton County six years after the election was happening, what is to. If they're willing to do that for an election that happened six years ago, what do you think they're willing to do in the election coming up? So I think people should be very clear that the president is trying to steal the election.
And Democratic governors specifically have been warning about this. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is term-limited in Michigan, she is the vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association. And I want to point people to an interview that she did with NPR where she talked about the real concerns that she and other governors have about what the Department of Homeland Security could do and how they could be used in this election coming up. So, my understanding with conversations with a number of different Democratic entities and lawyers is that Democrats are preparing for chaos about what we've before, during, and after this upcoming election.