By Alayna Treene, CNN
(CNN) — Hours after refusing to apologize for a racist video posted to his Truth Social account, President Donald Trump hadn’t let go.
He 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.
The 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.
“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.’”
Trump 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.
Britt’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.
But 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.
The 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.
Just 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.
The 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.”
Getting Trump’s attention
But 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.
As 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.
“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.
That 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.
The president, as well as many of Trump’s top advisers, have privately asserted that Scott’s response is what led to the story gaining n