Barack Obama appears unaffected by Donald Trump‘s recent jibes at him and his family, saying he didn’t take the offensive AI ape video shared by the president’s account “personally.”
The former president previously called out the remarks, saying people found Trump’s behavior “deeply troubling,” before noting that the “shame” and “decorum” once associated with public office now seem lost.
The two political leaders have long been at odds, with Trump recently reigniting their feud by blaming Obama for the demise of Spirit Airlines.
Barack Obama Says Trump Crossed The Line With AI Video
Obama appeared in a recent interview with The New Yorker, where he weighed in on everything from his reluctance to become a political commentator to his long-running public feud with Trump.
The billionaire politician sparked controversy when an AI-generated video depicting Barack and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes was shared on his Truth Social platform back in February. However, the 44th president explained that the image itself was not what offended him most, but rather the fact that Trump dragged his family into it.
“I don’t take it personally,” Obama said. “I mean, I’m always offended when my wife and kids get dragged into things, because they didn’t choose this… That’s a line that even people whose politics I deeply reject, I would expect them to care about. I would never talk about somebody’s family in that way.”
Obama Sounds Off On Trump’s Controversial AI Videos
Elsewhere in his chat with The New Yorker, Obama said he is more concerned about the AI videos Trump has shared that portray war “like a video game” and show “excrement dumped on ordinary citizens.”
“I mean, I’m a fair target in the sense of, yeah, you can feel free to pick on me, because I’m your own size,” he said.
The video in question pushed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and claimed voting machines in several battleground states were rigged in favor of Joe Biden, per Variety. However, the clip ended by showing Barack and Michelle Obama with their heads superimposed onto apes’ bodies while smiling and dancing in a jungle setting to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
Trump Refused To Apologize For Offensive AI Video
Trump later said he had no plans to apologize for the racist video, adding that he passed it along for someone else to post and that it was not “erroneously” shared.
“I didn’t make a mistake,” he said, per the Associated Press. “I liked the beginning. I saw it and just passed it on, and I guess probably nobody reviewed the end of it.”
During a February conversation with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama addressed the controversy and took a swipe at Trump, saying the “shame” and “decorum” once associated with public office are now lost.
Trump Blames Barack Obama For Spirit Airlines Collapse
Meanwhile, both presidents have long been at each other’s necks, frequently trading jabs and making comments seemingly designed to provoke one another.
More recently, Trump accused Obama of being responsible for the downfall of Spirit Airlines. During a conversation with reporters in the Oval Office, the president alleged that Obama blocked what he described as a “natural merger” between Spirit Airlines and People Express, which has operated since the 1980s.
“So, Spirit is an airline that’s had some trouble. They were going to merge with People Express, or one of them, a number of years ago, and Barack Hussein Obama decided it was a bad idea,” Trump said, per News Republic.
He added, “How did that work out? It was bad for both of them. That would’ve been a natural merger.”
Fact-Check Undercuts Trump’s Obama Airline Claim
However, fact-checking quickly revealed that People Express went out of business in 1987, five years before Spirit Airlines officially began operating under its current name, and decades before Obama entered the White House.
Trump was possibly referring to Spirit’s attempted merger with JetBlue in 2024 under Biden’s administration.
The deal ultimately fell through after critics raised antitrust concerns and argued that eliminating Spirit’s low-cost service would reduce competition and drive up prices.
Many users also took to social media to criticize Trump for the comments, as well as for repeatedly bringing up Obama’s middle name.