Fox News has so far completely ignored a racist Truth Social post by President Donald Trump that depicted former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

Trump's late-night Truth Social video recycled conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and briefly cut to an image of the Obamas' faces superimposed onto ape bodies, a textbook use of one of the oldest racist tropes targeting Black Americans. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later tried to wave away the clip as an “internet meme” casting Trump as “King of the Jungle.”

Fox’s lack of coverage is even more glaring considering the post is garnering pushback from some Republicans, with Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), a Trump ally who has generally stood by the president, calling the video “the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House.” 

Several other outlets, including Axios and CNN, have called the image in the post “overtly racist.”

Following backlash, the post was deleted from Trump’s account.

Right-wing media have a long record of platforming, defending, and downplaying racist content that depicts Black people as monkeys or apes, treating one of the oldest anti-Black slurs in American politics as either a joke, a meme, or a way to feign outrage over backlash. Fox News' decision to ignore Trump's latest ape caricature altogether fits an established pattern – when the racism is too explicit to spin, the network's safest move is to simply pretend it never happened.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “Trump,” “President,” or “Truth Social” within close proximity to any of the terms “Obama,” “Barack,” “Michelle,” “ape,” “racist,” “post,” or “video” from February 5, 2026, when President Donald Trump posted a video on Truth Social portraying the Obamas as apes, through noon ET February 6, 2026.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when President Donald Trump's February 5 Truth Social post portraying the Obamas as apes was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the post. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the post with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the post without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the post scheduled to air later in the broadcast.