President Donald Trump displayed a dramatic scene in the Oval Office on Wednesday, sharing video clips with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that allegedly portrayed a ‘white genocide’ in his nation.
Ramaphosa’s visit to the White House was aimed at enhancing South Africa’s relations with the Trump administration, particularly after Trump had halted aid to the country, expelled the South African ambassador, and extended refuge to the white minority Afrikaners.
Trump has claimed that there’s a race-based ‘genocide’ unfolding in the African nation, with South African-born DOGE leader Elon Musk agreeing.
Elon Musk was present among the journalists in the Oval Office during this intense encounter, reminiscent of the meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ramaphosa came Wednesday to soothe things – telling Trump at the top of their remarks that he brought him a golf book and had worked on his golf game.
He had champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and luxury goods tycoon Johann Rupert tag along.
In turn, Trump humiliated Ramaphosa – asking aides to dim the lights in the Oval Office as he played a supercut of speeches from EFF leader Julius Malema, whose trademark song at rallies is ‘Shoot the Boer, Shoot the farmer.’
Trump then pulled out a pile of news clippings, including a story from the Daily Mail from writer Sue Reid, about why white South Africans are fleeing violence and ‘racist’ laws.
The Mail’s report detailed a white South African now farming in Arkansas and making better money because ‘black empowerment’ policies have put white job applicants at the back of the line.
‘These are articles over the last few days – a death of people, death, death, horrible death, death, death,’ Trump said paging through a pile of news clippings and showing them off to the cameras. ‘White South Africans are fleeing being of the violence and “racist” laws,’ he continued, reading the Mail’s headline.
‘And I’ll give these to you,’ Trump told Ramaphosa. ‘So when you say, “What would you like to do?” I don’t know what to do for this – white South African couples say that they were attacked violently.’
‘Look here’s burial sites all over the place,’ Trump continued.
The president had shown a clip of white crosses lining a roadway.
Ramaphosa was aghast, admitting that he didn’t know where that was.
Trump appeared to have shown footage of the Witkruis Monument, which honors both white and black farmers who have died in attacks.
‘When you look at the videos, I mean, how does it get worse? And these are people that are officials and they’re saying “kill the white farmer and take their land,”‘ Trump said.
Malema’s rally song was popularized during the anti-apartheid struggle but Afrikaner lobby groups have amounted it to hate speech and tried to get it banned.
‘That is not government policy. We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,’ Ramaphosa tried to explain. ‘And in many cases, or in some cases, those policies do not go along with government policy.’
‘Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying, even in the parliament, and a small minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our Constitution,’ Ramaphosa said.
Trump then charged: ‘But you do allow them to take land.’
‘They take the land, they kill the white farmer and when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them,’ the American president continued.
Trump asked later: ‘Why would you not arrest this man? That man said “kill the white farmers, kill the white farmers” and then he danced.’
Ramaphosa pushed back and said that violence in his country impacted people of all races – and actually affected black South Africans more.
‘There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people, a majority of them are black people,’ the South African leader said.
Increasing the dramatic scene was Trump’s decision to periodically tear into NBC News’ Peter Alexander.
Alexander had initially asked Trump why the U.S. was welcoming white South Africans but not Afghan and Venezuelan refugees.
‘Well, this is a group, NBC, that is truly fake news,’ Trump replied.
Trump really lost it on the veteran journalist when he asked about the Qatari plane being given to the Department of Defense directly after Trump rolled the video clips showing ‘white genocide’ in South Africa.
‘There are all white farmers being buried and he asks about a jet that was given. You outta be ashamed of yourself. You are so bad, you’re such a bad reporter,’ Trump chided.
