Trump Pulls Sophmoric Stunt in Front of South African President and Ends Up Embarrassing Himself

Convicted felon Donald Trump had White House staff screen videos purporting to show instances of genocide against White residents in South Africa during his meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.  The week prior to the visit, Elon Musk (one of the leading purveyors of false claims of “white genocide” in South Africa)  tweeted out the same clip which seemed to show graves of hundreds of slain white farmers.  In actuality the video did not show real grave sites.  It was a political demonstration staged by a right-wing South African party to highlight violence against farmers.

The political demonstration shown in the video was staged as a response to the murders of Glen and Vida Rafferty in August 2020.  It was later discovered that four men were convicted of the Raffertys’ murders,  for ambushing and killing the couple as part of an armed robbery scheme (not any effort at genocide).

Trump also lied about the reports being all published in “the last few days,” and about “people that recently got killed.”  Neither or these statements was true-- the most recent of the articles and photos shown were four months old, with the others being published over a span of five years.

In addition, facts just don’t support the claims that white South Africans are being killed en masse in order to seize their farmland.  According to South African police data, 225 people were killed on farms in South Africa from March 2020 to April 2024. One hundred and one of those victims were either current or former workers living on farms, most of whom are Black. Fifty-three of those murdered were farmers, who tend to be white.  

South Africa's President Ramaphosa, who sat quietly watching videos showing politicians calling to kill white farmers, later said: "I would like to know where this is from; this I've never seen." He then took a jab at Trump, saying: "I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you."