It started, as so many Donald Trump controversies do, with a late‑night post and a shrug.
On his Truth Social account, Donald Trump shared a video that crudely depicted Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. It sat there for more than 12 hours before it was finally taken down. His press secretary rushed to call the uproar “fake outrage,” insisting the clip was really about “President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King.”
Donald Trump claimed he hadn’t watched the whole thing before reposting it. Now, a longtime Trump chronicler is flatly calling that story nonsense — and offering a darker, stranger explanation that the White House never wanted in the open.
Michael Wolff, the journalist who has spent years reporting on Donald Trump’s inner circle and writing bestsellers like Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House and All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America, says the former president’s spin about the video is a lie.
Appearing on the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast with host Joanna Coles on February 7, Wolff said he had spoken directly with people inside Trump’s orbit about the ape video and the attempt to blame it on an anonymous staffer.
“I spoke to people in the White House about this,” he said, referring to Donald Trump throwing an aide under the bus for the post.
“And their view was, well, you know, actually, let me quote … ‘Off his meds.’”
‘We should be showing this. People should know what black people have to experience rather than us hiding it away.’
Sky’s @TrevorPTweets shares his thoughts, after a video was shared on Donald Trump’s Truth Social account portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as apes… pic.twitter.com/m3iBcbAGrq
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 7, 2026
According to Wolff, that was the internal explanation for why Trump would share something so openly racist, even by his own standards, then dig in instead of apologizing.
“So, which is an interesting thing that they can acknowledge when Trump is, is too Trumpy,” Wolff added. “When he has gone further than they would have expected. And at which point they acknowledged that there is something that has probably happened. That something pushed him over the edge… ‘He was over the edge last night.’”
That phrase — “off his meds” — is what detonated online. A clip of the interview, shared on Threads, drew a wave of stunned reactions from users who clearly interpreted it as a suggestion that Trump is being medicated to moderate his behavior, and that when he’s not, the worst impulses come out.
Reactions were blunt, and in some cases brutally funny. “HOLY S—T,” wrote one user. “Whoa,” added another. Someone asked, not unreasonably, “What meds cause you to not be racist? I don’t think there is one.”
Others were less inclined to blame any pill bottle. “He is always that racist. It has nothing to do with meds. Or lack there of,” one commenter said. Another user, riffing on the “FLOTUS” title in a typo that felt a little too on-the-nose, wrote: “We have a Fotus who needs his phone taken away at night like the child he is to keep us safe.”
You can agree with it or disagree with it, but Trump is pretty gangsta. pic.twitter.com/IRHQ7G1ew3
— APE (@TheDefiApe) January 6, 2026
Very few people bought the idea that Trump had simply, accidentally, reposted a video he hadn’t watched. “Trump lied???? Say it ain’t so,” one Threads user wrote, summing up the wider eye‑roll.
What Wolff is essentially saying out loud is what many around Trump have whispered for years: that when his posts cross even the very low bar his team has set, insiders treat it as a kind of medical episode — not an aberration exactly, but Trump “too Trumpy” for their comfort.
The controversy landed on top of months of speculation about Donald Trump’s physical and mental health. Critics and observers have pointed to his increasingly disheveled appearance, his habit of nodding off during briefings, and a diet that seems to consist of McDonald’s, candy, and Diet Coke in a single sitting.
His own Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has publicly blasted Trump’s obsession with fast food. Wolff, for his part, has written before about Trump’s love of Wendy’s and a diet “basically limited to beef.” None of that proves anything about prescriptions or diagnoses. But it feeds a broader narrative: a 79‑year‑old man, fueled by junk food and grievance, glued to his phone late at night.
That’s why the “off his meds” line landed like it did. It folded into a pre‑existing anxiety about what exactly is driving these outbursts — and whether anyone is actually in control of them.
It’s also why the White House response felt so flimsy. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s 28‑year‑old press secretary, dismissed the uproar as “fake outrage” and claimed the video was meant to cast Donald Trump as “King of the Jungle.” The obvious question — why that required dehumanizing the first Black president and first lady — went unanswered.
What Trump and Obama were REALLY saying 🤣 pic.twitter.com/ajvBdVpQDM
— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) January 11, 2025
Trump, predictably, refused to apologize. The post eventually came down, but not before doing what his ugliest posts always do: signal to his base, horrify everyone else, and lock another toxic image into the political bloodstream.
For Wolff, this is not just another episode; it’s part of a pattern he has spent years documenting, and one that has made him a target. His books and reporting on Trump and his family — including claims about their proximity to Jeffrey Epstein — have triggered legal threats on multiple fronts.
In an Instagram video, Wolff said Trump is threatening to sue him again, accusing the writer of conspiring with Epstein to “frame” him. First lady Melania Trump has also threatened a $1 billion lawsuit over Wolff’s assertion that she moved in Epstein’s social circle. Wolff has responded by filing his own legal action, accusing her of intimidation.
“This lawsuit gives me the power to subpoena Mrs. Trump, Mr. Trump and all their friends to talk about the Trumps’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Wolff said, noting that he has raised $800,000 on GoFundMe to bankroll the case. “So, bring it on.”
He has previously claimed that Epstein, while Wolff was working on his book Siege: Trump Under Fire, began sharing details about Trump’s world before the financier was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019.
BREAKING 🚨 Donald Trump posted an Ai video of Obama getting handcuffed and thrown in prison
I ABSOLUTELY VOTED FOR THIS 🔥 pic.twitter.com/ZflRcjRKOc
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 20, 2025
You don’t have to like Wolff’s style to see what his latest comments expose. The Obama ape video wasn’t a one‑off “oops” from a distracted social media team. It was another window into a 79‑year‑old man whose staff privately talk about him being “over the edge” and “off his meds” when the mask slips — and into a political ecosystem where that kind of talk, somehow, isn’t disqualifying anymore.
In that sense, the most chilling part of Wolff’s revelation isn’t the suggestion of medication at all. It’s the weary way insiders seem to have normalized the idea that when Trump is at his most unhinged and openly racist, the best anyone can do is wait for the meds and the morning to kick back in.
