Ten years ago today, Harambe the silverback gorilla was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo and became a worldwide sensation. Today, the official White House account bewildered social media users across the globe by posting a bizarre tribute to Harambe with the caption “Rest easy to a true patriot.”
“He became a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity, and the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on,” the post continues.
The comments, of course, are filled with people mocking the post.
Harambe was born at Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas, on May 27, 1999. In 2002, his mother and sister were killed by poisoning after chlorine tablets left next to a space heater produced chlorine gas in the zoo’s gorilla exhibit. In 2014, he was transferred to the Cincinnati Zoo, where he was infamously killed by zookeepers two years later.
Somehow, this is not the first time the Trump administration has addressed the situation. At the time of the gorilla’s death in 2016, President Trump said it was “so beautiful to watch” Harambe drag the child around.
“It was almost like a mother holding a baby,” he told reporters.
