Former US President Barack Obama, in response to a question from Cohen about the video, said that most Americans "find this behavior extremely concerning," without naming Trump. He added: "There's a kind of mockery that happens on social media and on TV, and the truth is, it doesn't seem like there's any shame anymore among people who used to feel that you needed to show a certain amount of decorum, taste, and respect for the office, right? That's been lost." Former US President Barack Obama criticized the "lack of shame" and decorum in the country's political rhetoric, responding for the first time on Saturday evening to a post from President Donald Trump that depicted him and First Lady Michelle as monkeys. The video, posted on February 5th on Trump's Truth Social platform, drew condemnation from members of both Republican and Democratic parties. While the White House initially dismissed it as "fake outrage," it later blamed an employee who allegedly posted it by mistake. At the end of the clip, which promotes conspiracy theories about Trump's 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, Obama's and his wife Michelle's faces appear on monkey figurines for about a second. Obama responded to the post for the first time in an interview with left-wing political podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen, published on Saturday.
