US President Donald Trump. (Photo: AP) US President Donald Trump on Sunday shared a falsified image showing former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama waving atop the steps of Air Force One, with the presidential plane altered to appear spray-painted with graffiti, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The post came months after Trump shared another widely criticised image depicting the Obamas as primates in a jungle setting, which he later deleted amid sharp, bipartisan pushback, AP reported.
The doctored image showed the Obamas smiling and waving beside a baby-blue-and-white presidential aircraft marked with graffiti reading “Yes We Can,” “Obama” and “BLM,” AP reported. The plane also carried Arabic graffiti reading “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God.” The graffiti imagery has historically been used as a coded reference to crime and urban decay in racially charged messaging targeting Black communities.
The February post depicting the couple as primates surfaced during the first week of Black History Month and was removed only after backlash from civil rights leaders and Republican senators; Trump did not apologize, and a staffer was later blamed for the post.
New Air Force One a sensitive subject
Trump recently took his first flight aboard a new Air Force One a Boeing 747-8 valued at $400 million, gifted by Qatar and retrofitted with a navy-blue, red and gold color scheme in place of the aircraft’s traditional light-blue livery.
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The President spent Sunday at his golf club in Virginia after delivering a speech Saturday on the National Mall marking Independence Day and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is scheduled to depart Monday for a NATO summit in Turkey. Neither the White House nor a spokeswoman for the Obamas responded to AP’s requests for comment.
The post follows a similar one last month in which Trump shared an altered image of Obama’s presidential library in Chicago, depicting it surrounded by garbage and wasteland, AP reported. Trump wrote at the time, “The Obama Library ten years from now will be a ‘Mecca’ for those who hate America!”
Trump’s Sunday posts also included an older photo of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni captioned “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED,” AP reported, reviving a dispute after Trump previously suggested Meloni had repeatedly asked him for a photo at the G7 summit. Meloni had called the account “completely fabricated,” saying “Italy and I never beg,” while Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani canceled a planned Washington visit in response, according to AP.
