Saturday, February 7, 2026
Karoline Leavitt’s Response to Trump’s Obama Ape Post Under Scrutiny
https://www.newsweek.com/karoline-leavitt-response-trumps-obama-ape-post-under-scrutiny-11482578
Karoline Leavitt’s attempt to depict President Donald Trump’s video showing Barack and Michelle Obama as apes as a “meme”, based on Disney classic ‘The Lion King’, has triggered a deluge of comments on social media criticizing the White House press secretary.
But there are no apes in ‘The Lion King,’ political commentators and social media users were quick to point out—only a mandrill, Rafiki.
Trump has been attacking the Obamas for years in a way that many have described as rooted in racism. Before being elected to his first term, Trump repeatedly spread false claims saying that Hawaii-born Barack Obama was in fact not born in the U.S. and should have been ineligible for president.
Trump deletes 'racist' post after wave of Republican backlash, White House says he didn't know
President Donald Trump took down an inflammatory post from Truth Social that depicted the Obamas as monkeys after a wave of backlash from some of the president's top allies on Capitol Hill.
The post first appeared on Thursday night and went under the radar until Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the lone Black member of the Senate GOP, demanded Trump take it down.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote the post off as a "meme" that was part of a video depicting Trump as the king of the jungle from "The Lion King."
"Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this," Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., said in a post on X. "The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize."
Still, it took several hours for the post to be removed.
Firestorm over racist social media post forces Trump to hit
The latest furor began late Thursday night with a social media post from the president. The post amplified a flagrant and undeniably racist clip of former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
But the White House message shifted after Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the sole Black GOP senator, blasted the Obama clip. His condemnation showed no evidence of performative fakery.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” he wrote before 10 a.m. EST Friday.
Racist video is merely the latest in a long line of Trump’s ugly social media posts
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/07/politics/trump-racist-video-social-media-posts
The White House has belatedly backed down from a racist video shared on President Donald Trump’s social media feed after blowback from Republicans.
The video promoting false claims of voter fraud concluded with a brief clip of images of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama’s heads affixed to the bodies of apes. After initially trying to defend the post and leaving it up for hours — even labeling the outrage “fake” — the White House eventually gave into bipartisan backlash, removed it and changed its tack.
In 2016, Trump posted an image of Hillary Clinton in front of piles of cash and the words “most corrupt candidate ever” inside a six-sided star reminiscent of the Star of David. The image had previously appeared on antisemitic, White supremacist message boards, and Trump’s campaign soon replaced it with a circle in place of the six-sided star.
Friday, February 6, 2026
Trump promises Schumer funding for NY tunnel project — if Penn Station and Dulles Airport are renamed after him
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/05/politics/schumer-trump-ny-funding-rename
President Donald Trump told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last month that he was finally prepared to drop his freeze on billions of dollars in funding for a major New York infrastructure project.
But there was a condition: In exchange for the money, Schumer had to agree to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles International Airport after Trump.
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Trump obliterates an aide’s efforts to downplay his comments – again
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/05/politics/leavitt-trump-contradict-nationalize-elections
Trump on Tuesday laid waste to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s efforts to pretend he didn’t say something as controversial as he did. And this has become an altogether familiar exercise.
The controversy du jour in the Trump administration right now is Trump having floated nationalizing elections.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump told former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in a podcast episode published Monday. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
So up stepped Leavitt to suggest that Trump hadn’t actually said what he said.
She claimed Trump was instead referring to Congress passing the SAVE Act, a bill that aims to combat noncitizen voting in federal elections – something that is already illegal and that experts say rarely happens.
And sure enough, Trump on Tuesday made clear that he meant what he said. Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins what he meant by nationalize the election, he made no mention of the SAVE Act and doubled down on the idea of the federal government asserting a more expansive form of control
Republicans fear Trump backlash could cost them Senate control
Senate Republicans are concerned that public backlash to President Trump’s handling of the economy and his aggressive deportation policies could give rise to a Democratic wave that not only sweeps away the House Republican majority, but also threatens their own three-seat majority in the upper chamber.
The latest alarm bell rang over the weekend when Democratic candidate Taylor Rehmet won a state Senate seat in a North Texas district that President Trump won by 17 points in 2024, a stunning upset that GOP senators say should serve as a “wake-up call” heading into November.
A second Republican senator who requested anonymity told The Hill that voters across the political spectrum aren’t happy with Trump’s handling of the economy and inflation, and a growing number of independents are turned off by his administration’s aggressive deportation tactics in Minneapolis.
Rand Paul on Trump call to ‘nationalize’ elections: ‘That’s not what the Constitution says’
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5722041-rand-paul-trump-call-to-nationalize-elections/
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he does not support President Trump’s proposal for Republicans to “take over” voting procedures in more than a dozen states and “nationalize” the midterm elections, declaring the president’s call to action blatantly unconstitutional.
“That’s not what the Constitution says about elections,” Paul said in an interview Tuesday with MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle, when asked about the president’s statement that Republicans “ought to nationalize the voting.”
Trump doubled down on his call for the GOP to “nationalize” voting Tuesday, despite efforts by the White House to soften his previous statements on the issue. He said the federal government should take a more active role in running elections to combat what he called “corruption.”
Haredi Jew assaulted in Zurich
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/03/haredi-jew-attacked-zurich-antisemitic-assault/
A 26-year-old Haredi man was the victim of an antisemitic attack in Zurich on Monday night. Around 8:15 PM, Zurich city police received a report that a Haredi man had been attacked by another individual.
Officers who arrived at the scene found several people preventing a man from fleeing. The detained man had attacked the 26-year-old Haredi Jew with his fists without any provocation from the victim. Thanks to the help of several passersby – including a Hasidic man and another non-Jewish individual – the attacker was held until Zurich police arrived. The attacker repeatedly shouted offensive and antisemitic remarks, even in the presence of police officers. The Haredi victim sustained minor injuries in the incident.
Trump’s Push to ‘Nationalize’ Elections, Explained
https://time.com/7366147/trump-nationalize-voting-federalize-elections-fraud-republicans/
As President Donald Trump continues to allege widespread electoral fraud benefitting Democrats, his latest attempt to upend U.S. elections in the name of correcting that fraud is a call for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting.
The Constitution decentralizes the U.S. election process and has specifically left the President out. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 states that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.”
In practice, this means local officials across thousands of jurisdictions administer elections and tabulate votes, with safeguards built in that the American Bar Association says makes it “almost impossible for systems to be breached on a scale to affect federal or state results.”
At the heart of Trump’s push are repeated accusations that previous U.S. elections were rigged. Trump has claimed that he won the 2020 presidential elections over his then-opponent Joe Biden, despite state and federal officials as well as numerous courts rejecting such claims. “The 2020 election, I won that election by so much,” Trump told Bongino. “Everybody knows it.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D, Calif.), meanwhile, accused Republicans of “desperately trying to rig the rules for future elections” instead of trying to win on their policies. “The right to vote is fundamental, and Congress should be working to make it easier, not harder, for eligible Americans to participate.”