President Donald Trump assaulted the media’s narrative denying the legitimacy of South Africans’ refugee claims on Wednesday, playing video evidence that detailed the ongoing racial violence and threats against white South African farmers.
During a meeting in the Oval Office, Trump ordered the lights dimmed before airing a five-minute video showing, in part, populist leader Julius Malema calling for the murder of South Africa’s white community.
“Revolution demands at some point there must be killing,” Malema said. Other clips showed so-called Economic Freedom Fighters dancing and chanting, “Kill the Boer, the farmer!”
The video also showed a memorial of hundreds of white crosses reportedly erected to honor murdered white farmers.
Trump also confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about a new law that means white farmers could have their land taken away without being paid for it. As I previously reported, “Though framed as a correction to apartheid-era injustice, the law has created an environment where racially motivated persecution may become institutionalized.”
Ramaphosa insisted that the video and speeches that were being made are “not government policy.”
“Our government policy is completely, completely against what [Malema] was saying,” Ramaphosa said.
“Why wouldn’t you arrest that man?” Trump asked. “That was a stadium that holds 100,000 people, and I hardly saw an empty seat.”
Aside from Trump calling out Ramaphosa to his face for what has been allowed to happen under his leadership, Trump’s public confrontation and airing of footage did something else: It directly undermined the left-wing media’s narrative that white South African farmers do not deserve refugee status.
“White South African ‘refugees’? The jokes write themselves,” The Guardian’s Nesrine Malik wrote, arguing that “there is nothing to support” the claim that white farmers in South Africa are facing “violence and discrimination.”
PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman claimed that Trump’s “Afrikaner refugee policy [is] based on unfounded claims about land, white farmer ‘genocide.’”
Sherman acknowledged that “White farmers have been murdered in South Africa” and cited a researcher who noted that “anecdotal evidence suggests many victims are white” before adding the caveat that “other victims are Black or nonwhite.”
Nonetheless, Sherman tried to debunk Trump’s claim.
Writing for Vox, Nicole Narea questioned whether “white South Africans [are] really refugees?” before arguing in the subhead that “Trump’s new resettlement program ignores the history of apartheid.” Narea dismissed Trump’s recent comments about the discrimination and genocide as merely “far right” talking points.
The examples are endless.
But on Wednesday, Trump pushed back on that narrative. In highlighting what has been going on in South Africa and confronting Ramaphosa to his face, Trump gave white South African farmers something the media never would: validation.
South African farmers had their case made at the highest level — forcing the propaganda press to confront the truth. But these farmers aren’t just fleeing persecution — they’re poised to thrive in the United States. White South African farmers speak English and share similar civic and cultural values that Americans already embody, making the assimilation process easier.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
