Trump's Racist Video: "No, I didn't make a mistake."

Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display this week.

Erica L. Green, Isabella Kwai and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at NYT:

President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, but he insisted he had nothing to apologize for even after he deleted the video following an outcry.

The clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was among a flurry of links posted by Mr. Trump late Thursday night. It was the latest in a pattern by Mr. Trump of promoting offensive imagery and slurs about Black Americans and others.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Trump said he only saw the beginning of the video. “I just looked at the first part, it was about voter fraud in some place, Georgia,” Mr. Trump said. “I didn’t see the whole thing.”

He then tried to deflect blame, suggesting he had given the link to someone else to post. “I gave it to the people, generally they’d look at the whole thing but I guess somebody didn’t,” he told reporters.

Still, Mr. Trump offered no contrition when pressed. “No, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.

The White House response to the video over the course of the day — from defiance to retreat to doubling down — was a remarkable glimpse into an administration trying to control the damage in the face of widespread outrage, including from the president’s own party.

The clip was in line with Mr. Trump’s history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants, and he has for years singled out the Obamas. Across Mr. Trump’s administration, racist images and slogans have become common on government websites and accounts, with the White House, Labor Department and Homeland Security Department all having promoted posts that echo white supremacist messaging.

 

House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES has posted a new new video about the Trump video from Truth Social. Here is what the top House Dem said:

"This disgusting video, posted by the so-called president, was done intentionally.

"Fuck Donald Trump and his vile, racist and…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) February 6, 2026

Trump Tuesday

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Hegseth insisted that generals and admirals fly in from all over the world to hear lectures from him and Trump.  Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

As comical as many of Trump’s comments were, the president’s nakedly partisan appeal to U.S. military officers was a violation of every standard of American civil-military relations, and exactly what George Washington feared could happen with an unscrupulous commander in chief. The most ominous part of his speech came when he told the military officers that they would be part of the solution to domestic threats, fighting the “enemy from within.” He added, almost as a kind of trollish afterthought, that he’d told Hegseth, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military—National Guard, but military—because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor.”

This farrago of fantasy, menace, and autocratic peacocking is the kind of thing that the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan evocatively called “boob bait for the Bubbas” and that George Orwell might have called “prolefeed.” It’s one thing to serve it up to an adoring MAGA crowd: They know that most of it is nonsense and only some of it is real. They find it entertaining, and they can take or leave as much of Trump’s rhetorical junk-food buffet as they would like. It is another thing entirely to aim this kind of sludge at military officers, who are trained and acculturated to treat every word from the president with respect, and to regard his thoughts as policy.

But American officers have never had to contend with a president like Trump. Plenty of presidents behaved badly and suffered mental and emotional setbacks: John F. Kennedy cavorted with secretaries in the White House pool, Lyndon Johnson unleashed foul-mouthed tirades on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Nixon fell into depression and paranoia, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden wrestled with the indignities of age. But the officer corps knew that presidents were basically normal men surrounded by other normal men and women, and that the American constitutional system would insulate the military from any mad orders that might emerge from the Oval Office.

Aaron Pellish at Politico:

President Donald Trump posted another deepfake AI-generated video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday hours before the federal government is expected to shut down, further signaling the significant divide between the two parties.

On Monday, Trump posted a vulgar AI-generated video of Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking outside the White House. The video portrayed Jeffries wearing a mustache and a sombrero while mariachi music plays in the background.


Jeffries condemned the deepfake as “bigotry” in a social media response and called it a “disgusting video” in an MSNBC interview later Monday evening.

On Tuesday, Trump shared a clip of Jeffries’ MSNBC interview criticizing the original video, again adding an AI-generated mustache and sombrero. The latest video features four depictions of the president playing mariachi music as Jeffries speaks.

Trump’s repeated antagonization of Jeffries sets the tone for what may be difficult and drawn-out negotiations over a government-funding solution as lawmakers on both sides continue to dig into their positions.

 

Trump's Solution to Funding Stalemate: Post Racist Video

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Kit Maher at CNN:

As the US government barrels toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump shared a racist video on social media, which appears to be AI-generated, depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice.

Jeffries and Schumer met with Trump just hours before at the White House to discuss the looming shutdown.

In the video, Schumer is depicted as arguing for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare” because minority voters hate Democrats and they could use the votes in the next election.

As mariachi music plays in the background of the video, the fake Schumer voice says, “There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.”

This is real. pic.twitter.com/MSANoEbFCP

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeemjeffries) September 30, 2025

The Left Believes in the Green Lantern Theory of Minority Party Leadership

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Hans Nichols at Axios:

A closed-door meeting for House Democrats this week included a gripe-fest directed at liberal grassroots organizations, sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Members of the Steering and Policy Committee — with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in the room — on Monday complained activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members' offices."People are pissed," a senior House Democrat who was at the meeting said of lawmakers' reaction to the calls.

The Democrat said Jeffries himself is "very frustrated" at the groups, who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump.

A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday

Zoom in: "There were a lot of people who were like, 'We've got to stop the groups from doing this.' ... People are concerned that they're saying we're not doing enough, but we're not in the majority," said one member.Some Democrats see the callers as barking up the wrong tree given their limited power as the minority party in Congress: "It's been a constant theme of us saying, 'Please call the Republicans,'" said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).

I reject and resent the implication that congressional Democrats are simply standing by passively," said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.).

Biden Botches Debate

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun.  It is a fight between two very old men.

Jonathan V. Last: "When people say Biden is `old' what they mean is `frail.' Trump is functionally the same age as Biden, with a muc worse BMI and cognitive functioning. But because Trump can yell at the moon like a mad dog, people see him as `vigorous' and age isn’t a problem."

Peter Baker at NYT:

President Biden hoped to build fresh momentum for his re-election bid by agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all.

Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president’s ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.

Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters — including members of his own administration — traded frenzied phone calls and text messages within minutes of the start of the debate as it became clear that Mr. Biden was not at his sharpest. Practically in despair, some took to social media to express shock, while others privately discussed among themselves whether it was too late to persuade the president to bow out in favor of a younger candidate.

 

Morning-after thermonuclear beat downs from my race from the debate and polling geniuses like 538 predicted l’d lose by 2.

And what happened?

The only seat to flip and won by a historic margin (+5).

Chill the fuck out.

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) June 28, 2024

An interesting interaction just now. @FarnoushAmiri asked Jeffries if Biden is the most effective messenger for democrats given what the New York democrat described as existential stakes.

“President Biden is scheduled to speak today around noon, as I understand it, in North…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 28, 2024

The Mess on the Hill

Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.  

Mary Ellen McIntire and Aidan Quigley at Roll Call:

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan became Republicans’ nominee for speaker Friday, winning a secret-ballot election against Georgia Rep. Austin Scott, a last-minute entrant into the race.
...

“We’re done here until Monday,” Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said after the second ballot to gauge how many GOP members would back Jordan on the floor came in at 152-55. One member voted “present” on that second ballot, according to Cammack and Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.

...

The second vote indicated slightly higher margin than the initial 124-81 vote Friday to nominate Jordan, a founder of the House Freedom Caucus who became an ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent years. Still, according to Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the second-round vote total was “enough to not know if we could go to the floor today.”

...

“I don’t know, but the math is not good” for Jordan, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a Scalise backer, said Friday. “I think ultimately, we’re gonna have to find somebody who can truly unify us.”

Another Scalise ally, Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan, said ahead of Friday’s votes that he didn’t believe Jordan could get to 217 votes and that a quick turnaround to considering his bid was unfair to any challengers.

“I like Jim, but I just think that Steve got a raw deal,” Buchanan said. “I think he’s worked hard, he’s earned it and I think if [Jordan] would’ve given him a little bit more support — that really changed my mind a little bit on Jim Jordan.”

Sahil Kapur and Julia Jester:

Democrats are standing firm in their refusal to bail out the House Republican majority as it struggles to elect a new speaker 10 days after after booting Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

They're also dialing up the rhetoric against the GOP’s new nominee for speaker, prominent Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan of Ohio, blasting him as an insurrectionist, election denier and extremist.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Friday on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by dozen of Democratic lawmakers. “His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.”

  Corky Siemaszko at NBC:

Four of the former Ohio State University wrestlers who have accused Rep. Jim Jordan of failing to protect them from a sexual predator when he was the team’s assistant coach in the 1980s and '90s said Tuesday he has no business being the next speaker of the House.

“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” said former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”