President Trump’s social media activity has caused new worry inside the White House. Staffers said the president is “off his meds” after he posted a racist video, according to reports. The video showed Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
According to The Daily Beast, biographer Michael Wolff shared what happened after Trump posted the video on Truth Social last Thursday night. The clip stayed on the president’s account for 12 hours before being deleted. Wolff talked to people inside the White House about what happened.
Wolff spoke to Joanna Coles about the incident and shared what he heard from people in the administration. “I spoke to people in the White House about this, and their view was, you know, actually, let me quote, ‘off his meds,'” Wolff said.
White House staff have their own terms for Trump’s worst moments
Staffers know when the president has gone too far. They call it being “too Trumpy.” Wolff said that when this happens, they say “something pushed him over the edge.” It seems they have special words for dealing with these situations.
The post brought strong criticism, even from Republicans. Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, called the video a “death knell” for Republican chances in the 2026 midterms. He said vulnerable Republican lawmakers were “beside themselves” about having to defend the clip to voters. Wolff has been vocal about Trump’s controversial connections and past relationships in his reporting.
The White House tried to fix the damage quickly. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the video a “Lion King meme,” even though there are no apes in The Lion King. The White House later said an unnamed staffer posted the video. Trump gave a different story when he talked to reporters on Air Force One on Friday night. He said he did not watch the whole video before sharing it.
“No. I looked at it, I saw it, and I just looked at the first part… I didn’t see the whole thing,” the president said. “I guess, during the end of it, there was some kind of a thing that people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it.”
Trump often posts many videos on Truth Social in just a few hours. Wolff said his social media account has actually helped hide his behavior from most people. “One of the themes of the campaign among the Trump staffers was, ‘Thank God he’s doing this on Truth Social rather than Twitter, because he’s the only one on Truth Social,'” Wolff said.
He added that if people saw the posts, they would see “that there is something truly profoundly peculiar here.” Meanwhile, JD Vance has defended Trump’s outsider status among America’s elite circles. Wolff thinks the president “continues to get a break on this” because news outlets cannot cover every incident.
Coles called the Truth Social activity “a different kind of blood pressure monitor.” Wolff said news organizations can only focus on the worst items. “You can’t produce a headline that says, ‘The president of the United States went bats— nuts last night,'” Wolff said, adding, “You’d be writing that every day.”
Published: Feb 8, 2026 03:15 pm