Jack White Goes Off on ‘Sick, Deranged’ President Trump for Posting Racist Video of the Obamas as Apes

President Donald Trump just hit a new low in the eyes of Jack White — and that’s saying something, considering the White Stripes rocker’s long history of criticizing the president online.

After Trump’s official Truth Social account posted a since-deleted video depicting Michelle and Barack Obama as apes — a historically prominent and deeply racist trope — dancing in a jungle setting to The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” White shared a screenshot of the offensive clip Friday (Feb. 6) and wrote on Instagram, “This post would basically get anyone, at any job fired immediately … except for arguably the most important position in the world.”

“How is it possible we’ve given this evil man so much power?” he asked.

Urging the American people to “indict” and “jail” the twice-impeached POTUS, White went on to call Trump a “longtime friend” of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, citing the appearance of the politician’s name in the recently released Epstein files. He added, “Abolish these loopholes, abolish the electoral college … that got us here in the first place and [have] failed not only Americans, but everyone else in the world who is currently suffering from our policies and suffering from the whims of this sick, deranged man who I will state again, has his tiny, bruised fingers on the nuclear launch button.”

Billboard has reached out to the White House for comment.

The video posted to Trump’s account was reportedly up for 12 hours before it was taken down, with a White House official telling Variety that a staffer had “erroneously” shared it to Trump’s account before it was taken down. Shortly after it was posted, however, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had defended the video as being “from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.”

“Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public,” she added.

Americans like White see it differently. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has long been vocal in his opinion that Trump promotes racist ideology, with this being just the latest example. In 2023, White called out the politician and all of his supporters, writing on Instagram, “Anybody who ‘normalizes’ or treats this disgusting fascist, racist, con man, disgusting piece of s–t Trump with any level of respect is also disgusting in my book.”

One of White’s more recent callouts happened in January, after Trump mocked Rob Reiner one day after it was reported the beloved filmmaker and his wife had been murdered. “Trump you disgusting, vile, egomaniac loser, child,” White wrote at the time. “To use someone’s tragic death to promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin.”