Trump Posts Falsified Image of Obamas with Graffiti on Air Force One
President Donald Trump on Sunday posted a falsified image on Truth Social showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama waving before boarding an Air Force One that had been spray-painted with graffiti. The post comes months after another racist post by Trump in February that depicted the Obamas as primates in a jungle, which was deleted after bipartisan backlash.
The latest image shows the Obamas smiling and waving at the top of the stairs alongside a baby blue and white presidential plane with graffiti that includes the Democrat's campaign slogan “Yes We Can,” “Obama,” and “BLM,” short for Black Lives Matter. The post also shows graffiti in Arabic that says “alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God” or “thank God.” According to experts, the use of graffiti is a coded message to remind people of crime and urban decay and has been used in racist messaging against Black people in the past.
Trump's History of Racist Rhetoric Against the Obamas
Trump has a yearslong record of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas, including feeding the lie that Obama was not born in the United States and crude generalizations about majority-Black countries. In February, during the first week of Black History Month, Trump posted a racist image of the Obamas as primates, which was removed after widespread criticism from civil rights leaders and Republican senators. Trump refused to apologize, and a staffer was later blamed for making the post.
The presidential plane is a sensitive topic since Trump last week took his maiden voyage on a new Air Force One—a retrofitted Boeing 747-800 worth $400 million gifted by Qatar. The aircraft's trademark light blue hull was replaced with Trump's preferred color scheme: a navy-blue belly with red and gold stripes.
Trump's Public Activities and Silence from the White House
After giving a speech on the National Mall in Washington to mark Independence Day and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on Saturday night, Trump had no public events on Sunday and spent the day at his golf club in Virginia. He is set to leave Monday for Turkey to attend a summit with NATO allies. The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment, nor did a spokeswoman for the Obamas.
Sunday's post also followed one from last month when Trump shared a doctored image of Obama's new presidential library in Chicago, making it look like the building had a large bag of garbage on top and was surrounded by a wasteland. “The Obama Library ten years from now will be a ‘Mecca’ for those who hate America! President DJT,” he wrote then.
Additional Controversial Posts and International Reactions
The Air Force One image was part of a series of Sunday posts Trump made on Truth Social, including a past picture that appeared to show Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni grinning and gazing upward at Trump under the words “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.” That could touch off a new firestorm at this week's meetings in Turkey, since Trump had suggested that Meloni asked “over and over” for a photo with him during the recent Group of Seven summit—and suggesting she begged for such a picture. Trump's comments prompted Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to cancel a subsequent, planned trip to Washington, while Meloni called Trump's account “completely fabricated,” saying “Italy and I never beg.”
