Addressing his Truth Social video controversy which depicts the Obamas as apes, US President Donald Trump said that he "of course" condemned the now-deleted video.
Trump said that he looked at only a part of the video and that his staff looked at the whole thing, according to a report by BBC. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump said: "I didn't make a mistake".
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Trump clarifies
"I look at a lot of thousands of things," the president said, adding that after watching only part of the video he "gave it to the people who generally, they look at the whole thing".
Trump clarified that nobody knew that it was in the end. "If they would have looked, they would have seen it, and probably they would have had the sense to take it down," he said and added, "Somebody slipped and missed a very small part."
"We took it down as soon as we found out about it," he was quoted as saying by BBC.
When asked if he would apologise for the video, he said, "No. I didn't make a mistake," according to a CNN report.
He, however, said that he condemned the racist portion of the clip. When asked later if the video could harm Republicans' support among Black voters, the president said no and defended his accomplishments.
"I am, by the way, the least racist president you've had in a long time," he was quoted as saying by CNN.
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Backlash over the video
According to a BBC report, Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is black, had called for the President to remove the post, describing it as "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House".
However, initially the White House defended the clip as an "internet meme video" and told the critics to "stop the fake outrage". But after strong criticism, including from several Republican senators, the post was taken down from Trump's Truth Social account. A White House official said that a staffer had "mistakenly" made the post, said BBC.
There has been no comment on the video by the Obamas yet.
