Former President Barack Obama resurfaced over the weekend to address a since-deleted meme video posted to President Trump's Truth Social account on Feb. 5 — a clip that depicted the Obamas as apes and triggered backlash from Republicans in Congress.
The interview, conducted with left-wing podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, marked Obama's first public comments on the video after weeks of silence.
Obama didn't dwell on the clip itself. He spent more time building a framework for Democratic resistance — specifically arguing that the party's playbook against immigration enforcement in Minnesota should serve as a model for opposing Trump more broadly.
That pivot tells you everything about what this appearance was actually for.
As reported by the NY Post, the Truth Social post in question featured a video relitigating accusations that the 2020 election was stolen, with Trump cast as the King of the Jungle and various political figures depicted as characters from The Lion King. At the end of the clip, a segment showed the Obamas as apes. It appeared the video had been a screen recording and that the ape portion came up as the next video in a queue, not part of the initial clip.
White House officials said a staffer "erroneously" posted the video. Trump told reporters he "didn't see" the ape portion and said he had no particular message for those offended:
"Well, I have no message. I didn't know about it, so I mean, it went up. I really have no message."
When asked directly whether he condemns the racist elements of the clip, Trump said, "Of course." The video has since been deleted. Trump has not apologized to Obama.
Obama had been quiet during the initial firestorm. He's been selective about when he weighs in on Trump's second term, choosing his spots carefully — speaking out on the immigration crackdown in Minnesota and the Trump administration's repeal of the EPA's endangerment finding on climate change, which had been used to justify scores of regulatory policies targeting greenhouse gas emissions.
When he did finally address the meme video, his tone was measured but loaded with implication. He told Cohen:
"I recognize that a majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling."
He then broadened the frame considerably:
"It is true that it gets attention. It's true that it's a distraction. But as I'm traveling around the country … [and] meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness, and there's this sort of clown show that's happening in social media and on television."
And then the institutional critique:
"What is true is that there doesn't seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office."
Obama let out what was described as a laugh of disgust during the exchange. The performance was vintage — the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger register that Obama has refined over decades in public life.
Here's what deserves more attention than the meme itself: Obama used the interview to do political organizing work. His argument that the Democratic response to immigration enforcement in Minnesota — an operation now winding down should become the template for broader resistance to Trump is not a passing observation. It's a strategic directive from the most influential figure in the Democratic Party.
That Minnesota operation involved federal immigration enforcement, the kind of basic sovereignty exercise that most Americans support. Obama framing opposition to it as a "model" reveals where the Democratic Party intends to plant its flag: not on popular ground, but on activist ground. The decency talk is the packaging. The resistance playbook is the product.
This is how Obama has always operated. The moral framing comes first — who could object to "decency, courtesy, kindness"? — and the policy agenda rides underneath it. He's not giving interviews to process his feelings about a deleted meme. He's setting the terms for how Democrats should fight the next two years.
The irony of Obama lecturing on "respect for the office" while simultaneously organizing resistance to the sitting president's enforcement agenda is the kind of contradiction the left never has to answer for. Decorum is invoked when it's useful and discarded when it isn't.
Obama has been selective — strategically so — about which Trump-era controversies merit his attention. He didn't weigh in on every provocation. He chose the ones that let him play elder statesman while advancing specific policy objectives. The meme video gave him a sympathetic entry point. The immigration enforcement fight in Minnesota gave him a reason to stay on camera.
The deleted video was crude, and Republicans in Congress said so. That part of the story resolved itself — the clip came down, condemnation was bipartisan, and Trump said he condemns it. What didn't resolve is the question Obama actually came to raise: whether Democrats can build a durable resistance movement around obstructing immigration enforcement and energy deregulation while wrapping it in the language of civility.
That's a harder sell than Obama makes it sound. But he's the best salesman the Democrats have, and he just clocked back in.