REPORTER: “Mr. President, you frequently criticize Joe Biden for not knowing what is going on in his name. This racist video that was posted is on your social media.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I know what’s going on a hell of a lot better than you do! You don’t know what’s going on! I know what’s going on. No, Joe Biden didn’t have a clue, but we know everything. And when you look at what’s happening with our economy, think of it, we’re way years ahead of schedule. We have thousands and thousands of businesses being built right now, so Joe Biden had no clue. If Joe Biden were elected or if Kamala were elected, we wouldn’t have country right now. We won the election because of minority voters.”
REPORTER: “Does this post maybe hurt Republicans with, you know, Black voters after the…”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “You know, I was, look, we did criminal justice reform. I did the historically Black colleges and universities. I got them funded. Nobody has been, and that’s why I got a tremendous, the highest vote with male Black voters that they’ve seen in many, many decades. I’ve done great with them. Black voters have been great to me. I’ve been great them. Black voters has been great me. I’ve been great to them. And I am, by the way, the least racist president you’ve had in a long time, as far as I’m concerned. We have — I’ve had a great relationship. Think of what I’ve done. Criminal justice reform. Nobody else could do it. Obama couldn’t do it, nobody could do. Clinton couldn’t. They actually went the other way. They went into a very bad thing for African American people, Black people. They went to a — they did very bad things. I did very good things. But criminal justice reform, and then I funded the universities, which nobody else was willing to do. They were going every year, they’d come back to Washington and they’d be begging for money, begging. I got to be friendly with some of the heads of the schools and they would come back and they would literally tell me they’re forcing us to beg. I’m the one that got them long-term financing and more than they were looking for. So there’s nobody that’s done more. And I think maybe more than anything else was criminal justice reform. They’ve been trying to get it for years. And I’m the one that got it done, so nobody can tell me about that.”
“That somebody posts, the staffer posts, you know, posts. And I knew it was all about, if you take a look at that, and see the whole thing, it was a small section at the very end. But that was about fraudulent elections, which we have, a lot of them. We’re gonna get it stopped. And I liked the beginning, I saw it, and just passed it on.”
Observations:
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.