WASHINGTON - Former President Donald Trump's social media post featuring a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes was removed by the White House on Friday, hours after it was initially defended. The controversial video, which amplified false claims about the 2020 presidential election, drew swift condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans.
According to a White House official, the post was made "erroneously" by a staffer. Trump, speaking on Air Force One, claimed he only viewed the beginning of the video and "didn't see the whole thing," including the offensive imagery. He suggested that "somebody slipped" when posting the video to his Truth Social account shortly before midnight on Thursday.
The video's content sparked immediate backlash. Several Republican lawmakers, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate, publicly urged Trump to remove it. "Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House," Scott wrote. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the video, calling it an "internet meme video" that portrayed the president as "King of the Jungle."
In other news, the Pentagon announced on Friday that it was cutting ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships, and certificate programs with the Ivy League institution. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that Harvard "no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services." This decision marks the latest development in the Trump administration's ongoing dispute with Harvard over demands for reforms.
Also on Friday, a federal appeals court endorsed the Trump administration's policy of holding many ICE detainees without bond hearings. A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that the administration had properly reinterpreted an immigration law last year. This reinterpretation disqualified many unauthorized immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from requesting bond hearings. Previously, immigrants who had lived in the U.S. unlawfully for years were generally eligible for such hearings.
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