President Trump reposted a video on Truth Social that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys/apes, and then deleted it after a wave of backlash that included Republicans on Capitol Hill. It was one of those moments that, unfortunately, are common in this White House: something unreservedly dumb happens, and it becomes the national conversation of the moment.

Deleting it was the right move. But the real test isn't whether the internet can spot racism in five seconds—it can. The test is whether the Right can enforce real discipline rather than give its enemies freebie shots. This was a post that never should have happened - and I mean the entire post, not just the ending.

Let's be plain about what happened. The post depicted the first Black president and first lady as primates, and that trope is racist on contact—no "context" fixes it.

The GOP Backlash Matters More Than the Spin

And here's the part worth noting: the pushback came from inside the coalition. Sen. Tim Scott called it "the most racist thing" he'd seen out of this White House and told the president to remove it.

Sen. Pete Ricketts said that even if you want to call it a "Lion King meme," any reasonable person sees the racist context—and the White House should remove it and apologize.

Both were correct, as were the other Republicans, pointing out the obvious.

The White House initially tried to wave it off as a meme, part of a "king of the jungle" video concept. That kind of reflexive spin didn't help, because it asked people to ignore what they could literally see. That's a page out of the Biden playbook.

Then the story shifted: aides said Trump didn't see the video before it went up, and the White House pinned the post on a staffer's error. The video was removed about 12 hours after it was uploaded.

The offensive imagery appeared at the end of the clip, inside a broader "King of the Jungle" meme package. The actual thing the White House was aiming to post was about the 2020 election, which is just as dumb to relitigate as anything else in this story. But "Obama as ape" sits in a different moral category for obvious reasons.

A serious movement shouldn't need a seminar on why this is wrong. You don't fight identity politics by leaning into a racist visual language that turns people into symbols instead of citizens.

And you don't get to outsource your conscience to the delete button. If the post was bad enough to be removed that quickly, it was bad enough never to have gone up in the first place.

Accountability Without a Speech Tribunal

But I'm not letting the White House off the hook with "I didn't see it." Trump told reporters he hadn't watched the whole clip, condemned the racist portion, and said he would not apologize.

This is the presidency. As I said, the main reason for posting that meme was about Trump making more 2020 election claims—so even if the White House wants to talk about "fake outrage," the whole package was irresponsible. It's 2026. Trump is president now. 

If you want to defend free speech—really defend it—you have to model responsible speech at the top. The First Amendment restrains government power. It doesn't force the president to post like an algorithm-chasing influencer.

His critics are going further, claiming this isn't an accident, it's a pattern; he refuses to apologize; and the White House only acted after public pressure.

There's truth in parts of that critique. But the wrong conclusion is the one Democrats reach: they are the only non-racist party. Trump's video is revoltingly dumb. Democrats take a different tactic.

Standards Apply to Everyone

Take a look at Texas Democrats right now. The white, leading candidate in the Democratic primary is getting lit up after he called a black man running for office mediocre, with all the trappings that entailed. If you listen closely, you'll note that James Talarico, who was endorsed by many national Democrats in this race, has an excuse not much different from Trump's. 

So here's the standard I'm asking for, from Republicans first, because this is our house: if your side steps in it, you say so fast, you fix it, and you stop making excuses that insult the public's intelligence. That meme never should have run. Anyone who had bothered actually to watch that video should have spiked it. 

This is sloppy from top to bottom. Had Trump simply not posted about the 2020 election, he wouldn't have been in this spot. Now he's defending an entirely other post. 

And to be fair, we did get some of this. Republicans publicly told a Republican president, "No." Tim Scott didn't hedge. Ricketts didn't hide behind "just a meme." That's what adult politics looks like. The Texas Senate race hasn't seen anything similar, nor have we gotten any reflection on the Democratic Party's embrace of antisemitism. 

Delete the garbage. Own the mistake. Then get to actual governing. This country has a severe lack of that one thing: wise statesmanship.