Barack Obama has responded to a racist video shared by Donald Trump’s social media that depicted him and his wife, Michelle Obama, as apes.
The ex-president did not mention Mr Trump by name, but said the “decorum” and “respect for… office” that used to guide US officials had been lost.
After the video showing the Obamas as apes was shared on President Trump’s Truth Social account, the leader refused to apologise and said he “didn’t make a mistake”.
The depiction appeared towards the end of the footage, asserting debunked claims that the 2020 election – which he lost to Joe Biden – was stolen from him.
When asked about the post by Brian Tyler Cohen on his podcast, Mr Obama said that while it “gets attention”, it was also a “distraction” and the majority of “people find this behaviour deeply troubling”.
The former president said that although most “still believe in decency, courtesy and kindness, there’s this sort of clown show” on social media and television.
Instead, he believed the answer to controversy was “going to come from the American people”.
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ICE in Minnesota
In the same interview, Mr Obama cited the “heroic” and “sustained behaviour” of people in Minneapolis in response to the deployment of 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as an example of this.
He branded “rogue” activity by agents as “deeply concerning” and “dangerous”.
“The way that federal agents, ICE agents, were being deployed without any clear guidelines, training, pulling people out of their homes, using five-year-olds to try and bait their parents, all the stuff we saw… the rogue behaviour of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning,” he said.
The former president claimed that this type of behaviour has previously been “seen in dictatorships, but not… in America”.
However, he urged people to “take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary outpouring of organising, community building, [and] decency” in Minnesota, including Minneapolis.
Tom Homan, who’s leading the White House’s anti-immigration campaign, said on Thursday that the Trump administration had agreed to end the ICE operation in the state.
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Launched on 1 December to crack down on illegal immigration, the operation led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people, federal authorities said.
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But the action has proved controversial. ICE agents, usually dressed in face masks and military-style camouflage gear, have repeatedly drawn angry demonstrations from residents.
Some protests have turned violent, with two protesters killed during confrontations.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, a mother-of-three, was shot dead in her car by an ICE agent early in January, purportedly in self-defence.
Also last month, Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse, was wrestled to the floor by federal agents and shot multiple times in Minneapolis.
