AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Trump has taken down a blatantly racist video clip shared on his Truth Social account, but he has yet to apologize for it.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I guess toward the end of it, there was some kind of a picture that people don't like. I wouldn't like it, either. But I didn't see it.
RASCOE: The end of the video included a clip with the faces of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, superimposed on apes. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith asked Trump about the video while traveling to Florida on Air Force One this weekend, and she joins us now. Good morning, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: The outrage over this video was intense and not just from the left, but from Republican lawmakers, several of whom called on Trump to apologize. Initially, the White House kind of brushed it off, called it fake outrage, but then blamed it on a staffer. What did Trump tell you about how this video was shared in the first place?
KEITH: So the thing to know about President Trump is that very late at night, his Truth Social account regularly posts and amplifies a lot of videos and articles and posts from random accounts that validate his worldview. And he attempted to explain away this very problematic post by saying he looks at thousands of things and only looked at the beginning of this one. And the stuff he likes, he says he tells his aides to post, as happened in this case.
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TRUMP: Then I gave it to the people. Generally, they'd look at the whole thing, but I guess somebody didn't, and they posted it. And we took it down, and we deleted it, you know?
KEITH: It took 12 hours and a lot of calls from angry Republican lawmakers before the White House did take it down. The reporters on the plane Friday night pressed Trump repeatedly, and he said he doesn't need to apologize, didn't make a mistake, won't be firing anyone and is, quote, "the least racist president you've had in a long time."
RASCOE: And what was the gist of the first part of the video, the one that he says, you know, he only saw the beginning of, and he liked that part of it?
KEITH: So it was promoting a conspiracy theory about election fraud in the 2020 election, the one President Trump lost, but is continuing now, more than five years later, to prove he somehow actually won. The video was focused on Michigan. Though when he was talking about it on Air Force One, he said he thought it was about Georgia. And last week, the administration was defending, sending the director of national intelligence to Georgia, to Fulton County, where the FBI was seizing ballots from the 2020 election. The president last week also called for nationalizing election administration, at least in some Democratic areas, which election administration is constitutionally required to be handled by the states, and state election officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, are expressing alarm about potential federal interference. So this is about way more than idle middle-of-the-night social media posts. It is a real test for Democratic guardrails.
RASCOE: On another topic, a federal judge said on Friday that the Trump administration cannot stop funding for an enormous tunnel project between New York City and New Jersey. Now there's been reporting that Trump would be willing to release the funding if Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helped get New York City's main train station and an airport near Washington, D.C., named after Trump. What did the president have to say about this?
KEITH: So, like, the president has put his name on a lot of things recently, including the Kennedy Center. But this story seemed almost too on the nose to be real. And yet, when asked about it, Trump didn't entirely dismiss it.
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TRUMP: Chuck Schumer suggested that to me about changing the name of Penn Station to Trump Station.
KEITH: In a post on X, Schumer disputed Trump's account, saying, quote, "absolute lie. He knows it. Everyone knows it." The official reason the White House said they put a hold on this funding was to make sure that contracts didn't include anything related to DEI. But it had all the trademarks of retribution for the Democratic congressional leaders who are both from New York. Trump didn't address the funding side of this in his remarks, only the naming. But in his post, Schumer said, only one man can restart the project, and he can restart it with a snap of his fingers, that meaning Trump.
RASCOE: That's in NPR's senior White House correspondent, Tamara Keith. Thank you so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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