Who Told The White House “Take It Down”?

Everyone saw the racist post. Almost nobody saw the Black Republican pressure campaign Roland Martin says set Tim Scott in motion.

I’ve watched this blow up in public the way these stories always do. It starts with a racist image, instant outrage, the usual official shrug. Then, right on schedule, it vanished.

That’s the part I can’t let go ya’ll. No not the deletion. The mechanism. Who called who. Who had enough leverage to make the White House move before lunch. And why the one man chosen to deliver the message wasn’t a Democrat, or an activist, or a journalist, or even a MAGA (white) Republican.

It was U.S. Senator Tim Scott. And according to Roland Martin, the veteran journalist and host of Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, that wasn’t an accident. It was a coordinated decision made behind closed doors, with a very specific warning attached.

The Racist Video and the Initial White House Defense

Late Thursday night, President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social account that included an overtly racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as monkeys [1]. The roughly one-minute clip posted at 11:44 p.m. ET tacked the Obamas’ faces onto ape bodies with the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing, a crude trope echoing centuries-old racist imagery [1] [1]. By Friday morning, outrage over the post was swift and bipartisan. Lawmakers from both parties demanded the content be removed, calling it “racist,” “offensive,” and beneath the office of the presidency [1]. Facing the furor, the White House initially defended the meme: Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the criticism as “fake outrage,” insisting the video was just an “internet meme” depicting Trump as “King of the Jungle” in a Lion King-style parody [2]. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” Leavitt chided in a statement early Friday [2].

The Removal and the “Staffer” Explanation

By midday, however, the tone from Trump’s team had changed. Around noon on Friday the offending post was quietly taken down from Trump’s page [2]. A White House spokesperson told reporters that a “staffer erroneously made the post,” implying the president himself wasn’t directly responsible [2]. (This claim did little to quiet critics, given Trump had shared the clip from his own account). The rapid deletion capped a tumultuous morning in which condemnation of the racist meme had grown impossible to ignore.

Tim Scott Goes Public

Among the first and most notable rebukes came from Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina who is currently the only Black Republican in the Senate. Early Friday, Scott posted a starkly worded statement on X (Twitter), “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.” [2] Scott’s alarm was significant because as a loyal conservative and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he rarely calls out Trump publicly. According to multiple reports, Scott even phoned Trump directly that morning to urge him to take down the post [3]. By Scott’s account, the video crossed an inviolable line of decency. “This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize,” agreed Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, joining the chorus of GOP voices criticizing the post [2]. Democrats were equally blistering. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote that President and Mrs. Obama “represent the best of this country,” while blasting Trump as “a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder” and imploring Republicans to denounce his “disgusting bigotry” [2]. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer likewise labeled the video “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent,” calling on Trump to delete it and apologize to the Obamas [2].

The Coordinated Black GOP Ultimatum

Behind the scenes, it turns out Scott’s bold stand was not merely spontaneous. Veteran Black Republicans had mobilized that morning in a rare show of dissent against Trump. According to journalist Roland Martin, who revealed the backstory Friday on his livestream program, a group of longtime Black GOP figures held an urgent conference call to coordinate a response. “Basically what was decided was Tim [Scott] is going to fire the first shot across the bow,” Martin explained, describing how they chose Scott to confront Trump publicly [3]. The group then delivered a blunt ultimatum to the White House through backchannels. Martin recounted that their message to Trump’s team was essentially: “If y’all don’t take this down, this is a red line” [3]. If the racist post stayed up, the cadre of prominent Black Republicans warned, “we [are] about to come out blasting your ass” [3]. In other words, they threatened a public revolt by Black conservative allies if Trump did not immediately remove the offensive content.

This behind-the-scenes pressure campaign appears to have worked. Martin noted that Sen. Scott’s fiery tweet was deliberately coordinated as “part of that [plan] to get their attention” [3]. It was quickly followed by Scott’s personal phone call to Trump – the one that reportedly prompted the post’s removal and the official about-face blaming a staffer. “The Scott phone call, that’s the backstory,” Martin said, underscoring that even some of Trump’s loyal Black supporters felt this incident crossed a red line [3]. Indeed, it was an extraordinary moment of internal Republican accountability: a small coalition from a constituency Trump often touts as supportive was compelled to signal that this overt racism was a step too far.

Aftermath

By Friday afternoon, the White House was in damage-control mode. The offensive video was gone, and what began as defiance had turned into an attempt at disavowal. Administration officials insisted the president had not intended to post racist imagery of the Obamas, pinning the fiasco on an unnamed aide [1]. No formal apology was issued from Trump himself, but the swiftness of the deletion spoke volumes. It followed the clear message sent by Sen. Scott and his coalesced group of Black Republicans: such racist attacks on the Obamas would not be tolerated, even from a President they otherwise support. Their intervention, which was rare, pointed, and public, drew a line in the sand. In forcing the meme’s removal, they not only quelled a firestorm of criticism but also reminded the White House that some lines of basic respect and decency still matter, no matter one’s politics.

Housekeeping

Look, this is going to sound a little smug, and I apologize in advance, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you’ve read this far, and you are not on a fixed income, and you are not already committed to another deserving writer (I know I’m not the only deserving writer, I ain’t that smug) Just do it geez go paid. Ok?

Not because your subscription funds a new walk-in closet for my wife’s Louis Vuitton red shoe bottoms. (That’s what WashPost subscriptions are for) It keeps my furnace on so I don’t freeze to death while hitting publish. It covers my Verizon bill so I don’t have to steal WiFi from my neighbors. And yeah, it pays for the rest of the boring, unglamorous stuff that keeps this work showing up on your screen.

I work for YOU. If you want more of this, go paid. Bye.

Sources:

1. ABC News – “White House takes down racist video shared by Trump about Obamas after backlash” – https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-shares-video-includes-racist-depiction-obamas-sparking/story?id=129918626 [1] [1]

2. States Newsroom/DC Bureau – “White House takes down racist meme of Obamas posted on Trump social media” – https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/white-house-takes-down-racist-meme-obamas-posted-trump-social-media [2] [2]

3. Roland Martin Unfiltered (Black Star Network) – Broadcast transcript (Feb. 6, 2026) – https://www.facebook.com/rolandsmartinfanpage/videos/trump-attacks-obamas-with-racist-video-army-vet-faces-deportation-harry-dunn-hou/905704165180791/ [3] [3]