Obama ‘monkey’ video: From birtherism to the Nobel Prize — why Donald Trump is so obsessed with Barack Obama

Nearly a decade after Barack Obama left the White House, Donald Trump continues to invoke his predecessor, keeping Obama at the center of political attacks, online commentary, and viral controversies, a pattern that has resurfaced once again with Trump’s latest social media post.Trump's obsession with Obama is not a hidden fact for anyone. Trump shared an AI-generated video, which was posted on X in October 2025, on his Truth Social account, showing several prominent Democrats as animals bowing before Trump. Last year also, Trump posted on social media an AI-generated video based on footage of that meeting that showed the former president being forcibly detained by the FBI and then pacing inside a jail cell.Why Obama? The answer is hardly a mystery. The AI-generated video appears to project everything Trump fears and envies about his predecessor: Obama’s composure, intellect, global standing — and, above all, the way his presidency reshaped what power and leadership could look like in America. Obama’s presence in the White House challenged long-held assumptions, and that legacy continues to loom large. For years, Obama has occupied an outsized place in Trump’s political psyche.

Some observers trace Trump’s decision to run for president to the moment Obama publicly mocked him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly conflated Obama with President Joe Biden, at times incorrectly claiming he “beat Obama” in the 2016 election. He has even compared their health, insisting he is fitter than his former predecessor.

Nobel prize

Trump who is obsessed to win the Nobel prize, is actually won by Obama.

Donald Trump spent years obsessing about winning it himself. Barack Obama passed a historic health care law, and Trump made it his top priority to overturn it."He got it for doing nothing. Obama got a prize - he didn't even know what - he got elected, and they gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country," Trump said."They gave it to Obama for absolutely nothing but destroying our country," Trump told reporters."I've stopped eight wars, so that's never happened before - but they'll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn't do it for that, I did it because I saved a lot of lives," he added.

Birther theory

Trump’s rise in politics was fueled in large part by his fixation on Obama. The birther conspiracy — falsely claiming Obama was foreign, un-American, and illegitimate, helped Trump build a loyal base by turning racial resentment into political capital.

That strategy did not merely attack Obama; it questioned his right to hold power.In March 2011, Trump publicly claimed he had “real doubts” about whether Barack Obama possessed a valid US birth certificate. In the days that followed, he said he was dispatching private investigators to Hawaii to uncover the truth and even pledged to donate $5 million to charity if anyone could prove Obama was born in the United States. On April 27, 2011, the Obama White House released Obama’s long-form birth certificate in an effort to put the conspiracy theories to rest. Trump later cited the release as a “great service” he claimed to have performed by forcing the issue into the open. The reality, however, unfolded differently. In the years that followed, Trump continued to question Obama’s birthplace. In 2012, he tweeted that an “extremely credible source” had told him the birth certificate was fraudulent.

In 2013, he cast suspicion on the death of a Hawaiian health official who had verified copies of the document. A year later, he urged hackers to obtain Obama’s college records to check his “place of birth.

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How he went dismantling Obama victories?

As president, Trump systematically dismantled Obama’s legacy—exiting the Iran deal, attempting to repeal Obamacare, and repeatedly blaming Obama for policy failures—while Obama campaigned against him in 2016 and 2020, claiming he could have beaten Trump in a third term. This long-running feud, equal parts policy dispute and personal grievance, has persisted into Trump’s second term, finding fresh expression in posts like the recent video.