A controversial video featuring Barack and Michelle Obama as apes briefly appeared on President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account Friday morning, sparking nationwide outrage. Yet a closer look at the mechanics of social media suggests the clip may not have been intentionally posted by Trump himself.

In the video, the former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle appear as floating heads attached to the body of apes. The scene is part of a longer viral video clip that was originally published on X but also shared across all major social media platforms in late 2025. The clip is being referred to as “the Lion King video” and features the floating heads of every major Democratic leader in America dancing and singing their way through an African jungle as the soundtrack to the Disney film The Lion King plays in the background.

The former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears on the body of Pumbaa, the warthog. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appear as floating heads on two gazelles. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer make appearances attached to the bodies of zebras. And so on and so forth. In total, the video lasts about 1 minute and it ends with Trump’s floating head attached to a lion who rules over the animal kingdom.

Posted on October 24th, 2025 to Elon Musk’s X by “God First” account Xerias_X, the AI-generated video that was originally titled “President Trump: King of the Jungle” racked up nearly 30,000 likes and was viewed more than 1 million times. A cursory glance at Xerias’s account shows that this is just one of many AI videos produced by the account that have performed extremely well on Musk’s platform.

Now, let’s sort through the conflicting and confusing details of what really happened on Trump’s Truth Social account early Friday morning. First and foremost: The full video that was posted to Trump’s Truth Social account was a video concerning election fraud. Trump’s account reshared the video, originally posted by an account named “Patriot News Outlet,” which centered on election fraud, a topic Trump has been so enamored with that he (or Attorney General Pam Bondi, depending on whom you believe) sent Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to Fulton County, Georgia last week to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

When the election fraud video that was shared to Trump’s Truth Social account on Friday ended, the Lion King video autoplayed in quick succession. Autoplay is a feature built into some social media video platforms that immediately plays a secondary video that is not selected by the poster. As such, it would seem fair and appropriate to argue that whoever reshared the original election fraud video, whether Trump or White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino or an unnamed White House staffer, had no idea that the Lion King clip featuring the Obamas as apes would play in quick succession. 

In fact, it would also be fair and appropriate to argue that whoever shared the election fraud video to Trump’s Truth Social account, even if they had watched the clip from start to finish, may not have seen the Lion King clip pop up as an autoplay option. They may have watched the election fraud video to its full conclusion and, depending on the algorithm at that moment, may have been served a completely different video via the autoplay function. It would take a serious investigation into Truth Social and its algorithm to learn the details of how all of this played out on Friday morning. Without new guardrails being installed on the Truth Social platform, this whole event could possibly happen again. 

None of this is to downplay the seriousness of what transpired on Trump’s account Friday morning. But it is worth pointing out that Trump himself, or Scavino, or the unnamed staffer who White House officials blamed for the video’s provenance on Friday afternoon following nationwide outcry, likely had no control over whether the Lion King video autoplayed at the conclusion of a video about election fraud. 

Though much of the blowback on Friday has revolved around whether or not Trump is a racist—a topic that has been thoroughly examined from every angle over the years—the more interesting question in my view is about Truth Social’s algorithm, the type of accounts that dominate Trump’s social media platform, and perhaps most pressing, who owns the keys to Trump’s social media empire. 

To begin, let’s consider the type of accounts who have won viewership and prominence on Trump’s Truth Social media platform. Trump’s post on Friday was just one of dozens that were pushed out by the president’s account in the middle of the night. And as is often the case, many of the videos were reshares from dubious, pro-MAGA, QAnon-adjacent accounts that have come to embody the political and cultural landscape of Truth Social. A refuge for Trump’s most dedicated followers, Truth Social is far to the right of even Musk’s X platform, which tilts very much to the right. 

As a result, it’s become routine that Trump’s account shares media content and fringe accounts that would generally be seen as unfit for a president of the United States to promote. But, to his most diehard fans, this comes across as a rebellious streak and one that sets Trump apart from the “deep-state, secret cabal” figures who previously organized the American government. 

Because Truth Social markets itself as an “anything-goes” platform to the (far) right of X, and because any appearance of censorship to the hardcore MAGA faithful is viewed as an attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution, Trump’s social media app has created an environment where an ethically murky video such as the Lion King meme can gain mass viewership and support. What “liberals” consider racist (ie: the Obamas as apes), Trump’s biggest fans believe is all in good fun (the sort of humor that was wrongly expunged during the Cancel Culture era).  

Which is why many of Trump’s most loyal fans spent a good portion of Friday morning hopping from the original narrative of “he didn’t post it” to “he did post it and y’all just don’t have a sense of humor.” This willing and constant moving of the goalposts is something that has come to signify the pure MAGA movement. In their eyes, Trump can do no wrong, and even if it’s proven that he has done wrong, it’s more likely that his critics are just self-serving, overly serious liberals who can’t see the genius that is Trump. 

The White House did their best to clean up the whole mess, meaning they made a total calamity of the event. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt initially told Americans that criticism of the Lion King meme was “fake outrage” before telling press members and critics to “report on something today that actually matters to the American people.” For 12 hours the election fraud video remained on Trump’s social media account, bookended by the autoplay video of the Lion King meme. 

Members of Trump’s own party, including Sen. Tim Scott, Sen. Katie Britt, and Rep. Mike Lawler expressed outrage at the Trump administration’s position, pointing out that the situation was especially repugnant given that February is celebrated as a Black History Month in the U.S. Eventually, the White House ceded ground, admitting that an unnamed staffer, not Trump, was to blame for the Lion King meme being autoplayed at the end of a video about election fraud. 

And though the White House hoped to quell criticism by diverting blame from Trump to an unnamed staff member, its admission that someone other than Trump himself was posting to Truth Social only created more intriguing questions about the nature of Trump’s social media output. After all, one of the most appealing features of Trump, the outsider politician, was always that he says what he wants, unadulterated, whether it’s considered politically correct or not. By stating that Trump had not posted the video which led to the Lion King autoplay scandal, the White House was admitting that some of the content emanating from Trump’s social media accounts is no longer his own. 

The idea that the president of the United States has the time, motivation, and energy to post memes and clapbacks against the Democrats 24/7 on his Truth Social platform would appear ludicrous on its face. But given the fact that Trump’s appeal to many voters has been his sterling authenticity, especially via social media, it is not inconsequential to suggest that the Lion King saga represents a pivotal moment where many now clearly see that Trump has ceded control of a once-important aspect of his appeal.

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It also doesn’t help that Trump has repeatedly criticized former President Joe Biden’s failure to author his four years in the White House, deriding the former senator as the “Autopen” president. Trump enjoys mocking Biden’s alleged failure to govern so much that he snubbed the Democratic legislator by hanging a framed image of Biden’s signature instead of Biden’s portrait in his newly-unveiled “Presidential Walk of Fame” outside the Oval Office. 

The social media fracas comes at a particularly difficult time for the president, whose poll numbers on a range of issues have sunk in the early part of the new year. Speaking with NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas earlier in the week, Trump said he couldn’t understand why his polling numbers on the economy had turned sour despite the stock market reaching all-time highs in 2026.

Though Friday’s media cycle focused squarely on whether or not Trump harbors ill feelings toward people of color, the real controversy hiding in plain sight is regarding who controls Trump’s voice and the mechanics of his social media platform where clickbait content rules the roost. After spending years criticizing the Democrats for allowing a feeble Biden to allegedly sign away the White House, it is now Trump who must answer for his failures to oversee his messaging, his voice, and his outward appearance in front of the American people.