The Loyalty Trap

{"leadStory":{"url":"https://cnn.com/2026/02/13/politics/trump-racist-video-gop-blowback","title":"Trump privately lashes out at GOP lawmakers over racist video blowback, sources say","summary":"Hours after refusing to apologize for a racist video posted to his Truth Social account, President Donald Trump hadn't let go.\n"The president felt he could've handled that matter privately," a senior Trump administration official told CNN of Scott.\n"Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House.\nJust before noon, the White House said a staffer had erroneously posted the video and it was deleted.\nSenator Britt has a 100% voting record with President Trump and remains one of his strongest allies in the Senate.","text":"Hours after refusing to apologize for a racist video posted to his Truth Social account, President Donald Trump hadn't let go.\n\nHe spent last weekend complaining to allies about Republicans who had condemned the video depicting the Obamas as apes, questioning the lawmakers' loyalty and vowing consequences, sources familiar with his comments told CNN.\n\nThe president railed against South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott — the sole Black Republican senator and chair of the Senate GOP's campaign arm — throughout the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, arguing one of his top congressional allies was out of line to call his White House racist, the sources said.\n\n"The president felt he could've handled that matter privately," a senior Trump administration official told CNN of Scott. "He was like, 'We work together all the time. He didn't need to comment publicly.'"\n\nTrump had even stronger words for Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, one of the sources recalled, using expletives to denounce her and declaring that she was dead to him.\n\nBritt's office slammed that account as "fake news" and touted her strong working relationship with the president, while the White House praised her as "an incredible ally" whom the president has "great respect" for. Scott's office declined to comment.\n\nBut the episode, which marks one of the starkest GOP breaks from the president ahead of the 2026 midterms, also reflects how such moments have frustrated the commander in chief.\n\nThe White House's removal of the video, which it had initially defended last week, came nearly 12 hours after it had been online — and only after the blowback from some top Republicans.\n\nJust days later, a handful of GOP lawmakers bucked Trump on a key tariff vote, prompting him to threaten that anyone who votes against his signature economic policy will "suffer the consequences" in primaries. And late last year, Trump, under GOP pressure, was forced to back a vote to compel the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files — an issue he has said the country should move on from.\n\nThe White House argued that Trump remains "the unequivocal leader" of the GOP, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying in a statement that he's "committed to ensuring Republicans remain united against the Democrats who, if given the chance, will destroy our country again through open borders, allowing non-citizens to vote in elections, and horrific economic policy."\n\nGetting Trump's attention\n\nBut last Friday morning, it was Republican lawmakers trying to set the tone for their party by forcefully speaking out against Trump's late night post.\n\nAs the video was first gaining traction, Scott — who speaks to the president regularly — privately reached out, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Unable to get ahold of him, he took to X.\n\n"Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The President should remove it," the senator wrote.\n\nThat got Trump's attention. He later called Scott — with whom he has a close personal relationship — and told the South Carolina Republican he was planning to have his team remove the post. Just before noon, the White House said a staffer had erroneously posted the video and it was deleted. As he flew to Mar-a-Lago that night, Trump told reporters he hadn't seen the final frames of the video depicting the Obamas and blamed an unnamed staffer for posting it. "I didn't make a mistake," he said.\n\nThe president, as well as many of Trump's top advisers, have privately asserted that Scott's response is what led to the story gaining nationwide attention, the sources said.\n\nBut Scott was hardly alone in condemning the video. Britt, who's working closely with the White House to try to fund the Department of Homeland Security, applauded the post's removal last week, saying it "should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation."\n\nThe open criticism caught the attention of far-right activist Laura Loomer, who presented Trump with printouts of the lawmakers' statements, one of the sources familiar said. Loomer, who has previously succeeded in riling up the president over critical comments made by his perceived allies, posted on X that she was "compiling a list" of Republicans who "attacked" Trump with "false accusations of racism."\n\nNotably, some of the senators Trump and Loomer were furious with — including Scott and Britt — were also in Palm Beach that weekend for the National Republican Senatorial Committee's winter retreat. Trump did not meet with the group, but he did invite a select few — such as Sens. Eric Schmitt and Lindsey Graham, who had not criticized him over the video — to join him for golf and attend his Super Bowl party.\n\nBritt's office defended her support for Trump in a statement.\n\n"This is classic fake news by CNN. Senator Britt has a 100% voting record with President Trump and remains one of his strongest allies in the Senate. Just this week, Senator Britt had a tremendous conversation with President Trump about her leadership as she fights to defend our incredible ICE officers, pass the SAVE America Act, and advance the president's policies to make America affordable again. Any narrative suggesting otherwise is not only misleading, it is flat out false," the statement said.\n\nTrump says he hasn't punished anyone\n\nWhile Trump had harsh words for Republicans who spoke out against him, he's been less critical of the unnamed staffer whom the White House blamed for the debacle, telling reporters on Thursday that he has no plans to discipline the person.\n\nThe president often posts personally on Truth Social — particularly late at night and early in the morning — and he often personally re-posts others' posts, sources familiar with his social media use previously told CNN.\n\nBut a few close aides — including Natalie Harp, who will sometimes type out posts that are dictated to her, and Dan Scavino, a deputy chief of staff who ran Trump's social media accounts during his first term — also have access. Harp and Scavino were spotted on Sunday sitting beside the president during his Super Bowl party. Harp also boarded Marine One with the president on Friday as he traveled to Fort Bragg.\n\n"No, I haven't [taken action against them]," Trump said Thursday, without naming anyone. "That was a video on, as you know, voter fraud, a fairly long video, and they had a little piece, and it had to do with the Lion King. It's been very well, it's been shown all over the place long before that was posted.""},"relatedStories":[{"url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/trump-republicans-epstein-tariffs-elections.html","title":"Trump takes a beating from his own party amid Epstein files release and tariffs rebuke","text":"President Donald Trump's iron grip on the Republican Party might be starting to loosen, just a bit.\n\nThe few elected Republicans who regularly cross him — including Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina — are more vocal than ever. And in recent days, daylight has emerged between the president and a handful of his top supporters in Congress.\n\nThe apparent shift is underway as Trump, the Republican Party's undisputed leader, grapples with stubbornly low approval ratings — especially on the economy, a perennial issue on which he was elected that has only grown more important to Americans chafing under high prices.\n\nSix U.S. House Republicans voted this week to overturn Trump's tariffs on Canada. Tillis remained resolute in holding up the president's Fed chair nomination in protest over a Justice Department investigation of the current one. The administration pulled back the sustained anti-immigration law enforcement push in Minnesota. And fallout from the Epstein files — in which Trump and allies are mentioned — is roiling the world and its most powerful players.\n\nDemocrats are jumping on the opening, with some pushing a narrative that "the tide is turning" on Trump. Their perceived momentum follows big wins in last fall's off-year elections after hammering an affordability message, and as prediction markets favor them to win control of the House in the midterms.\n\n"Trump's grip on power is slipping," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Thursday in a gloating social media post. "Nobody is taking his bulls--- that somehow he's lowering prices for families."\n\nThe administration's efforts this week to wrest the affordability narrative — by drawing attention to Trump's drug-pricing initiatives, or to gains in the stock market, or to projections that Americans' tax refunds will rise this season — have been muddied by the deluge of political setbacks and controversies. Trump on Friday gave a passing glance to curbing price increases when he spoke to troops in North Carolina hours after the release of January consumer price index figures that showed slowing inflation.\n\nHe's had fewer public appearances since a racist social media post last Friday, a shift from his recent cadence of Oval Office appearances in front of reporters with supporters from the political ranks and business community. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a frequent press conference partner of Trump, but his visit to the White House this week yielded no public remarks.\n\nWhite House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked about challenges to Trump from the Republican Party, said the party will stay together with the president as its leader.\n\n"Under President Trump's leadership, Republicans will remain united together against the radical Democrats, who will destroy our country once again, if given the chance, with wide open borders, noncitizens voting in elections, and horrible economic policy," Leavitt said via email.\n\nThe majority-GOP House of Representatives' vote to override Trump's tariffs on Canadian goods only came about because three Republican members previously sided with Democrats to defeat a rule that would have blocked House votes on Trump's tariffs through July. Trump's threats of retaliation didn't thwart the end result.\n\nWhile the tariff votes are almost purely symbolic, they show GOP leadership failing to stop enough of their members from publicly defying Trump on his signature economic policy. Republicans can only afford to lose one vote in the House to prevail on party-line votes.\n\nA day after the House tariff vote, U.S. border czar Tom Homan announced the government would wrap up its immigration enforcement "surge" in Minnesota, following public outcry against federal agents' aggressive tactics exacerbated by the killing of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.\n\nA new AP-NORC poll found most Americans think the administration's deployment of deportation forces has gone too far, and that the GOP's advantage on immigration has shrunk since last year.\n\nThe Minnesota actions drew fiery pushback not only from protesters and Democrats but also from business owners. In an open letter shared Thursday, more than 266 businesses from across the U.S. that said they represent 100,000 others warned the government's actions threaten free markets.\n\nA series of other Trump-related stumbles have drawn national focus away from the administration's attempt to tout its accomplishments.\n\nLast week, the president's social media account posted a racist image depicting the Obamas as apes. Numerous Republicans spoke out forcefully and quickly against the post, including close Trump ally Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Senate Republican, who called it "the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House."\n\nThe White House initially defended the post, but after the flood of bipartisan outrage, pivoted to blaming it on an unnamed staffer. Trump subsequently condemned the image but refused to apologize.\n\nThis week, a federal grand jury rejected U.S. prosecutors' attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers, weeks after Trump accused them of sedition for telling military members not to follow unlawful orders. It is highly unusual for grand juries to decline to indict.\n\nThe Department of Justice is also in the midst of a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose refusal to quickly slash interest rates has made him a top target of Trump's ire.\n\nThe probe, which Powell says is retaliatory, has prompted vocal pushback from Republicans worried about the erosion of the central bank's long-established independence.\n\nTillis, who is retiring at the end of his current term, is blocking all Trump administration nominees to the Fed — including Kevin Warsh, the president's pick to replace Powell — from advancing through the Senate until the DOJ drops the investigation.\n\nThe president has said U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, a Trump loyalist, should continue the probe to completion.\n\nScott, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, said he does not believe Powell committed a crime —while Trump has repeatedly claimed Powell is either corrupt or grossly incompetent, complaining about cost overruns on building renovations. Numerous Republicans on the Banking panel agree that Powell did not commit a crime, according to Tillis.\n\nTrump is also grappling with the fallout from the DOJ's release of millions of its files on notorious sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, which is only intensifying days after the latest disclosures. Trump had opposed a bill forcing the DOJ to publicly share its files, but he reversed course as a growing number of Republicans geared up to vote for it anyway.\n\nThe newly released records have revealed ties between Epstein and administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has since admitted visiting Epstein's island for lunch with his family in 2012."},{"url":"https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-obama-ape-racist-tim-scott-b2920318.html","title":"Trump privately lashed out at Republicans who condemned racist video depicting the Obamas as apes, report claims","text":"Donald Trump has privately lashed out at two Republican senators who condemned a racist video posted to the president's Truth Social account last week depicting the Obamas as apes, according to a new report.\n\nA video showing former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama's faces superimposed onto the bodies of dancing primates to the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has received sharp backlash across the political aisle.\n\nEven some of Trump's supporters in Congress rebuked the video, which the White House claims a staffer "erroneously" posted on February 5. The clip was taken down several hours after it was shared.\n\n"Praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The President should remove it," Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, wrote on X in response.\n\nTrump then complained to allies while at Mar-a-Lago last weekend about Scott, people familiar with the matter told CNN.\n\n"The president felt he could've handled that matter privately," a senior Trump administration official told the outlet.\n\nThe official added: "He was like, 'We work together all the time. He didn't need to comment publicly.'"\n\nSenator Katie Britt from Alabama also denounced the racist video, writing on X last Friday, "This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation."\n\nOne CNN source said Trump slammed Britt, throwing out expletives, and said she was dead to him.\n\nBritt's office called CNN's reporting "fake news" and defended her relationship with the president.\n\n"Senator Britt has a 100% voting record with President Trump and remains one of his strongest allies in the Senate," her office told the outlet. "Any narrative suggesting otherwise is not only misleading, it is flat out false."\n\nThe White House boasted about Trump's "great respect" for "incredible ally" Britt, per CNN.\n\nTrump has refused to apologize for the racist video, telling reporters on Air Force One on his way to Palm Beach, Florida, last Friday, "I didn't make a mistake." The president insisted he only saw the first part of the video about "voter fraud," and not the end that depicted the Obamas as apes.\n\nThe start of the video promoted false claims that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of voter fraud.\n\n"It was a very strong post in terms of voter fraud," Trump told reporters last Friday, adding that no one on his team knew the clip depicting the Obamas as apes was at the end. The president told reporters Thursday that the staffer the White House claims mistakenly posted the video has not been fired."},{"url":"https://www.rawstory.com/trump-video-obama/","title":"Seething Trump froze out 2 Senate Republicans after racist video criticism: report","text":"A simmering President Donald Trump privately fumed over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago at Republicans who dared to criticize his social media post sharing a racist video about the Obamas, according to a new report Friday.\n\nAfter refusing to apologize, Trump spent days stewing and plotting payback against GOP allies who spoke out, CNN's Alayna Treene reported.\n\nThe targets of his ire: Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the sole Black Republican senator, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL).\n\n"The president felt he could've handled that matter privately," a senior Trump administration official told CNN about Scott. "He was like, 'We work together all the time. He didn't need to comment publicly.'"\n\nTrump reportedly questioned the lawmakers' loyalty for publicly condemning the racist video and unleashed expletives while declaring Britt dead to him.\n\nThe video depicting the Obamas as apes stayed online for nearly 12 hours before removal — and only after GOP backlash forced the president's hand. Trump refused to accept responsibility, blaming an unnamed staffer while insisting "I didn't make a mistake."\n\nThe president and many of his closest aides privately believe Scott's response led to the story gaining nationwide attention, according to the report.\n\nFar-right activist Laura Loomer fueled his rage by presenting printouts of the senators' critical statements. She then posted that she was "compiling a list" of Republicans who "attacked" Trump with "false accusations of racism."\n\nTrump rewarded loyalist Sens. Eric Schmitt and Lindsey Graham with golf invitations and Super Bowl party access, while freezing out Scott and Britt during the GOP's Palm Beach winter retreat.\n\nScott's office stayed silent on the report, while Britt's blasted the reporting as "classic fake news," touting her voting record alignment with Trump."},{"url":"https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/dead-to-me-trump-in-profane-frothing-rage-at-allies-who-slammed-racist-video-say-cnn-white-house-sources/","title":"'Dead To Me!' Trump In Profane Frothing Rage At Allies Who Slammed Racist Video Say CNN White House Sources","text":"ANDERSON COOPER: According to new reporting, there may be repercussions for some Republican lawmakers, including South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who's black. He called the Obama post, quote, the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House, seen as Alayna Treene has the story joins us now.\n\nSo Alayna, you're reporting that the president has talked about consequences for Republicans who push back on the post. Is it clear what that means?\n\nALAYNA TREENE: Not necessarily, but we have a good idea, Anderson, from what we've even heard the president say this week when we saw six Republicans break with him on his tariffs on Canada.\n\nHe said that they would likely face primaries and would suffer consequences in the elections.\n\nBut look, from what I was told from multiple sources who were with the president or had been hearing about these comments last weekend when he was at Mar-a-Lago is he was specifically focused on two lawmakers.\n\nHe had railed against a lot of them, but Tim Scott in particular really got under his skin that he had spoken out publicly about that post.\n\nThe president telling his allies essentially that he felt Tim Scott should have reached out privately given they have a close relationship. That it was really Scott's post calling it racist that he felt made the entire story blow up.\n\nI will say from another conversation I had with the source, they said that Tim Scott had actually privately reached out to the president first before he had posted that criticism of the post, but then didn't reach him. And so he went ahead and published it on social media.\n\nNow, the president also had pretty strong words. I was told even stronger language for Alabama Senator Katie Britt, who had also spoken out about this.\n\nHe had used a lot of expletives, I was told, when talking about her lack of loyalty in doing that.\n\nAnd also said that she was dead to him.\n\nSo very, very much anger from the president over how some of these lawmakers had reacted.\n\nAnd I do think it reflects kind of this growing, a sense that we're seeing of Republicans who, for the president's first year in office, really rarely, if at all, stepped out of line to break with him. We're seeing that happen more and more in recent months."}]}