Kathmandu. Former US President Barack Obama has lashed out at the lack of decorum and modesty in the US political discourse after a video of him and Michelle Obama being portrayed as monkeys was published on Donald Trump’s social media account.

In a wide-ranging podcast interview with left-wing commentator Brian Tyler Cohen, he said the political debate had descended into “cruelty like never seen before” and that most Americans would consider such behavior “gravely concerning.” He said the “clown-style presentations” on social media and television without naming anyone were a sign that public office was losing due respect.

On February 5, a one-minute video shared from Trump’s Truth Social account repeated the conspiracy claims about the 2020 election. At the end of the video, the faces of Joe Biden and Obama were shown on the monkey’s body, which sparked widespread criticism. The White House initially denied the “fake outrage” but later said it was removed because of staff error. Trump said he stood by the video’s claims, but said he had not seen the scene.

In the interview, Obama said he hoped such messages could hurt Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, and that the answer would ultimately come from the American people.

He also criticized the Trump administration’s campaign of immigration suppression in Minnesota. Thousands of federal agents, including ICE officers, have conducted extensive raids and arrests in what they call a targeted operation against criminals. Obama expressed concern that the agents’ behaviour, including in some cases, was “very similar to what we see in authoritarian countries” and called it “evil behaviour”.

In Minnesota, the campaign has been followed by massive protests and nationwide outrage. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry is in a partial government shutdown due to a dispute among lawmakers over the allocation of additional funds to the body that oversees the immigration process. Democrats have vowed not to approve new funding until ICE makes substantive changes to its functioning.

Obama said that peaceful and organized resistance at the community level is the basis of hope, and that citizens are standing up for the values they believe in through truth and peaceful protest. He expressed the belief that such continuous activism of the general public would strengthen democracy.