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Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a surrogate speech supporting Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 2024 (local time). Yonhap News Agency

Former U.S. President Barack Obama, regarding President Donald Trump having shared on social media a video that superimposed the faces of him and his wife onto a monkey, remarked that “the dignity and decorum for public office have vanished.”

According to CBS and other outlets on the 14th (local time), Obama said this in an interview with popular YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen after being asked, “How can we reverse America’s backsliding?”

Although Obama did not directly mention Trump’s post, he said, “A kind of clown show is unfolding on social media and TV,” adding, “In the past, there was a sense that one had to uphold dignity and decorum for public office, but now it has disappeared.” He added, “The vast majority of Americans do not condone such behavior,” and “the answer will ultimately come from the American people.”

On the 6th, President Trump posted on his social network Truth Social a video that composited the faces of former President Obama and his wife with a monkey, then deleted it after 12 hours. The video repeated allegations that the 2020 presidential election, in which he failed to win re-election, was fraudulent.

Obama criticized an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota in which two civilians were killed by gunfire from immigration officers, saying, “The deviant conduct of federal agents is serious and dangerous.” He continued, “This is not the America we believe in,” and, “We are seeing behavior once observed in past authoritarian states or dictatorships, behavior not seen in the United States, but we can find hope in the heroic peaceful protests that ordinary citizens have continued to show.”