Donald Trump ambushes South African president over ‘white genocide’
“We have thousands of people that want to come into our country. They’re also going to Australia, in a smaller number … They’re white farmers and they feel like they’re going to die.”
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The tense exchange did not rise to a shouting match but represented the most contentious Oval Office meeting since Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late February.
The video shown in the Oval Office on Wednesday included clips from an incendiary speech by Julius Malema, leader of the communist Economic Freedom Fighters political party, insisting South Africans would occupy land without regard for the laws of the land.
“We don’t care, we can do whatever we want to do,” Malema said in the clip.
Ramaphosa told Trump that Malema belonged to a minority party that was allowed to exist under the South African constitution and that his words did not constitute government policy.
At one point, Trump handed the article print-outs to Ramaphosa and told him: “Those are all recent, those are all deaths.”
The world’s richest man Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, was present in the Oval Office for the confrontation.Credit: AP
Ramaphosa said he appreciated that the US, as a South African partner, was raising genuine concerns about crime and would be happy to discuss them away from the cameras.
“We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit around a table and talk about it,” he said, referring to form anti-apartheid activist who went on to become South African president.
The meeting was also notable for Trump’s targeting of an NBC journalist who inquired about Qatar’s gift of a luxury Boeing 747-8 to the US government. The jet is to be fitted out as Air Force One, and will then be transferred to Trump’s presidential library at the end of Trump’s term, effectively making it his own.
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The US formally accepted the $US400 million ($621 million) plane on Wednesday (Thursday AEST), with chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell saying it had complied with “all federal rules and regulations”.
Immediately after the Oval Office saw the South Africa video, NBC journalist Peter Alexander began to ask about the Qatari plane.
Trump – who has been accused of corruption by soliciting and accepting the offer – interrupted and unleashed a torrent of abuse.
“What does this have to do with a Qatari jet? They’re giving the United States Air Force a jet, OK, and it’s a great thing,” he told Alexander.
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“This is NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real – you’re a terrible reporter. Number one, you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter, you’re not smart enough.
“You ought to go back to your studio at NBC because [Comcast chief executive] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated. They are so terrible … and you’re a disgrace. No more questions from you. His name is Peter someone, he’s a terrible reporter.”
Trump constantly returned to the subject of the US media after that, calling Alexander an “idiot” and a “jerk”, and asserting that if the US media wasn’t “fake”, they would give greater coverage to the plight of white South African farmers.
