Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump has condemned a video posted on his social media account that compared former Democratic President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama to monkeys. However, Trump refused to apologize for the post, which has sparked fierce criticism from both political factions for its dehumanizing effect on African Americans.

According to Thai News Agency, Mr. Trump clarified to the press on Friday that he did not watch the entire video before White House officials posted it to his personal social media account. He stated that he only saw the beginning of the clip, which dealt with election fraud through ballot machines, which he considered abhorrent and lacking transparency. He then forwarded the video to his review team, who normally thoroughly check all content, but in this case, it appears an error occurred. He admitted that some parts of the clip at the end were offensive to some viewers, and that he himself disliked those images as well.

When questioned by reporters about condemning or criticizing the content of the clip, Mr. Trump confirmed that he certainly criticized what happened, but declined to offer a formal apology, citing that he did not make any mistake as he has to review a vast amount of information and data every day. The White House initially defended the post before deciding to remove it after it had been on social media for 12 hours.

The approximately one-minute video was shared via President Trump's Truth Social network late Thursday night. It focuses on allegations of a lack of transparency in the 2020 presidential election. However, the end of the video features a short, seemingly artificial intelligence (AI) edited clip of a dancing monkey with the faces of the former president and his wife superimposed on it.