1. Mediaite, which started out as relatively balanced website but has devolved into The Daily Beast, calls that a “wild rant.” That’s how Trump speaks and has always spoken. It’s not a “rant.” It’s his frustrated, embarrassed, annoyed reaction to a gaffe that he knows is his fault, and that will be exploited by his enemies as much as possible.
2. Trump gets no credit from the Axis for his accessibility to reporters, though both Presidents Obama and Biden were far less transparent and forthcoming. That’s one more marker of just how biased and hostile the news media is.
3. Whether one believes the “A staffer found it and posted it and Trump didn’t watch the thing to the end” narrative or not depends on whether you are able to give the President of the United States the benefit of the doubt and the presumption of good faith, or whether you distrust and detest him so much that confirmation bias compels you to assume the worst.
4. The reality is that it’s impossible to know which is true, absent more information. The way the Obamas snippet was the last feature on a clip that had nothing to do with the Obamas lends credence to the theory that Trump didn’t watch the thing all the way to the end. That Trump would be so astoundingly stupid not to know that such a classic racist trope would be used against him and yet he would post it anyway seems unlikely, except that he has said and posted other things that were almost as offensive in the past.
5. The President is still responsible for what goes out under his name. If an incompetent staffer handles his social media posts, Trump is accountable if that staffer is a careless idiot. If Trump reviews what is sent out, then he is responsible for letting an offensive post slip through. Blaming staff is cowardly and wrong no matter what the staff involvement was.
6. The staffer involved should be fired, shamed and named under old school management practices. Of course, that wouldn’t necessary satisfy the Trump Deranged, or even me. Staffers and others often are sacrificed, or sacrifice themselves, to protect the famous, rich and powerful. When movie star Lana Turner shot and killed her mobster boyfriend Johnny Stompanado, her teenage daughter took the rap for her mother, and it worked. But maybe Trump is doing a kind and ethical thing by not throwing the staffer to the metaphorical wolves. If his or her name was released as the culprit, then it would mean a lifetime brand as a racist.
I am reminded of the famous scene in “Edison,” where the inventor gives the first test incandescent bulb to the boy who serves as his lab assistant, and the excited kid trips as he carries the precious bulb across the room, smashing it. Many hours later, after a replacement is made, Tom hands it to the boy so he can redeem himself. Would Donald Trump do that for a young aide? I don’t know, but if we never learn the name it either means there is no such aide (bad) or Trump accepted responsibility instead of wrecking a subordinate’s life (admirable).
7. I don’t believe Trump is a racist and I am sure he doesn’t think so either. In the end, it should be what a leader does rather than what he says that decides the issue, but in life it is more complicated than that. A President sets standards and influences the culture. If Trump is perceived as being disrespectful to the sensibilities of African Americans, he encourages others to behave disrespectfully.
8. That is why, in the end, this ugly episode fairly earns shame and criticism for the President, regardless of how it came about. A competent, trustworthy, thoughtful leader never gets in these situations, or if somehow he does, everyone recognizes it as an anomaly.
9. A simple “I’m sorry: I screwed up” would be helpful. The President subscribes to the Nathan Brittles code, as expressed by John Wayne (above) in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” one of the Duke’s best. “Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness,” he tells a young cavalryman. That may be a wise rule in many situations, but not when genuine remorse and contrition are essential to regain trust.
Ethics Alarms 
A couple of thoughts.
First, Trump seems to be in the role of the tragic hero, who starts doing good, even heroic things, but whose fatal flaw eventually leads to his destruction. Trump has emerged victorious beyond all expectation so far, from winning the presidency in 2016, to emerging essentially unscathed from all the political warfare, to winning a comeback second term in 2024. He seems to be doing a great deal of what conservatives want him to do: secure the border, move business back to the States, reinvest in oil, coal, and natural gas, and tackling the bloated bureaucracies in our government. But we’ve watched his egotism and narcissism poison his best efforts time and time again. I don’t think Trump will come to good end, but he could prove me wrong.
Second, whatever is posted on your social media account is yours to own, unless you can prove that some unauthorized person hacked your account and posted something maliciously. Anything going up should be thoroughly vetted.
Third, I agree with other commenters that Trump’s enemies will never give him a break, given him a moment to breathe, give him a chance to set to the pace, never. This has a couple of problems attached to it: if everything Trump does is awful, the actual awful things are minimized by becoming part of the tableau. Trump’s enemies will see this “ape” post as confirming what they already knew; Trump’s supporters will spin excuse for him; and those in the middle might unfortunately shrug because it is just one more sound in a cacophony. A further danger is that Trump himself may be so numbed to all the furor that he can’t even recognize anymore when he does something egregious, because the reaction from his enemies is the same.
Fourth, I had thought Trump might hold a completely unapologetic line here. The meme wars continue, and this “ape” post could have been just one more of a slew of memes to send the Left into conniptions.
Fifth, I have to wonder if the “blaming a staffer” is itself a trope meant to parody the Left. How many posts on the Left that were discovered and brought backlash were blamed on staffers? And now with all the furor, Trump pulls out the “staffer” card, and then says to the Left, “See what you just did here?”
Sixth, I’m sorely tired of the Trump spectacle. The endless screeching from the Left; the tedious sifting between what is Trump truly being an idiot from the Left distorting, taking out of context, or inventing whole cloth some scandal; the continual letdown when Trump shoots himself in the foot yet again (does the man have any toes left?) is all exhausting. But I also believe that Trump is uniquely suited for this conflict. But, again, back to the tragic hero, the very traits that make Trump uniquely suited to fight this battle are also part of the fatal flaw that will probably, eventually, be his undoing.
“whatever is posted on your social media account is yours to own“
The difference between LUV and SEND?
SEND is forever…
PWS
“Politics ain’t beanbag.”
#3 – I was under the impression that the Trump account ONLY posted the brief clip of the Obamas isolated from the rest of context. Based on that, I fully agreed that the post was gross and racially insensitive.
If it’s true that he actually posted the ENTIRE animation – I’m finding it harder to accept that there’s racial insensitivity there. In a larger collage genuinely mocking progressives as dumb jungle creatures, I don’t see a special argument that says particular races are protected from the mockery.
If his account posted the whole video, then I’m probably going to temper my earlier comments.