This feels like a “read the room” kind of comment.

All humans are biologically considered animals, and there are many times when I feel that viewing human behavior through that lens genuinely encourages compassion and understanding, and yet: there is a long history of people being called “animals” as a dehumanizing measure in order to justify doing the same horrible things to them that humans routinely do to non-human animals. This is particularly true for historically marginalized groups.

Likewise, there is a long, racist history of white people calling Black people “apes” or “monkeys” to justify racist systems and treat Black people the way they view monkeys and non-human apes, as resembling humans but not fully human.

This representative is specifically responding to a video shared by Trump, who has a long history of racist behavior, in which the Obamas were depicted as distinctly non-human apes (I cannot recall the specific ape and cannot readily look it up. Gorillas, I think?), echoing that racist trope.

When someone responds to Trump trafficking in racist tropes with “Black people aren’t apes,” they are not getting into the nitty gritty of taxonomical clades, they’re countering that trope. “Well, actually”-ing about humans technically being apes is undercutting the focus on countering Trump’s racism. Time and place.