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President Trump Repeats Unverified 'Genocide' Claims About South Africa. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired May 21, 2025 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: We have about 20 seconds, David Chalian. He just got into the specifics. Give us the big picture.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I mean, I think you hit on the big picture, Dana.

It is astonishing to see the president so focused on this, given everything else that is on his plate. And I know presidents have to deal with a lot of things at a lot of given time. But this is just one of those circumstances again where we find ourselves observing something and scratching our head and saying, what is this that is happening inside the Oval Office and why is the president putting this on the global agenda today?

BASH: Yes. Well, and Nia talked about a lot of the reasons why.

And we're going to continue to do so throughout the afternoon and evening.

Thank you for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We start with breaking news this afternoon.

We have been tracking some high tensions at the White House, as President Trump meets with his South African counterpart, President Cyril Ramaphosa. The face-to-face is happening just days after a group of white South Africans were granted refugee status in the United States, a highly controversial move.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: That's right.

And just moments ago, President Trump repeated an unverified claim that they have been subject to genocide, which South Africa vehemently denies.

Let's get right to CNN's Kristen Holmes, who is at the White House.

And, Kristen, I know that you have been listening to this play out. Walk us through what happened.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is growing increasingly more and more tense. We saw that the South African president came here with a real charm offensive. He was complimenting Donald Trump, saying that he wanted to reset relations, but things have really taken a turn.

Now, all of this is about what you just brought up, because there's this claim from President Trump that there is white genocide in South Africa. It is about the fact that there are white Afrikaners that Trump says are being pushed out of their land and being killed, something that the South African government denies.

Now, Donald Trump was asked by a reporter in the room, what would it take for you to change your opinion this, for you to see things differently? And the president of South Africa interrupted him, saying: I will take that one. I think what's going to help Donald Trump is talking to the delegation that I brought with me, that they will tell him that there is no white genocide in South Africa at this time.

Part of the delegation there includes two world famous golfers, people who apparently, according to the South African President Donald Trump, asked to come along. Then, in what appears to be a -- somewhat of an ambush, because they were clearly prepared for it, the White House, Donald Trump asks them to dim the lights, and they play a video which they say is a documentary or news clip that show that there is white genocide.

Now, just moments ago, when you guys came on the air, there was an official from South Africa trying to explain what was being seen in that video, saying that these are members of an opposition party, that this is not the government that is calling for the death of white farmers or for the death of white Afrikaners in South Africa.

But this is clearly growing more and more tense. And I can tell you, this was a man, the president of South Africa, who came prepared to court Donald Trump, but I don't think he came prepared for this. He knew exactly what to say in terms of trying to ingratiate himself with the president.

He talked about how they brought him a book of all of his big golf courses, how he's been taking lessons on golfing because Donald Trump told him to, that he brought these two world famous golfers with him, saying that thank you for what you did during COVID, all of the right things.

And then we saw this situation start to escalate. Now, remember, this was being billed as a trade meeting, but we knew that this topic was going to come up. This is, as you said, just right after a group of 50 refugees, white African, South African farmers were brought into the U.S. and granted that refugee status.

And Donald Trump continues to say that we have thousands of people telling us that they are fleeing South Africa because of what he says is genocide. The White House was very prepared for this line of attack. It's not just the videos. I have been watching on social media as the rapid response team has been putting out article after article after article as this is going.

Donald Trump was holding articles that he had printed out to show headlines that he said purported white genocide. Again, the government is saying there is no white genocide. There is -- overall. And there is no evidence of that we have either. This is an unsubstantiated claim.

This all stems from this idea that the land is being seized away from white farmers, and that is why they have been granted refugee status to come into the country, because they fear being killed as well.

There was a question about that. Donald Trump kind of brushed that off as well, saying that anyone facing persecution could come to the U.S. and that they had welcomed everyone. But this is growing increasingly heated and increasingly tense after starting off with seemingly pleasantries.

And this is not the first time we have seen this happening in these bilateral meetings in the Oval Office, where they start off, again, two people trying to have a discussion in front of the cameras, and then it has completely devolved into fighting. And, again, you're now seeing other members of the delegation stepping in saying that they want to clarify what's in the video.

[13:05:07]

You have Donald Trump doubling down, tripling down on this idea. And it's still, as far as I can tell -- I'm looking here -- I think it is still going on right now. And this has been -- I mean, it's been roughly 45 minutes of this, but probably the most surprising and certainly not normal part of these kind of interaction was the bringing in of this video and playing it for the South African president to say almost, I gotcha, gotcha moment, of here's the evidence against you.

SANCHEZ: Again, apparently, the president describing what was in the video, a series of white crosses, as having been grave sites. That was refuted by some of the African delegation in the room, suggesting that this was more of a political demonstration, as you outline.

Kristen Holmes from the White House, we will let you keep monitoring that event for us.

Let's bring in CNN's Larry Madowo.

Larry, you have obviously been covering South Africa for some time. Can you give us context to that video that the president played in the Oval Office. I understand that this was a political demonstration, not actual grave sites.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That was a lot to take in.

Almost everything President Donald Trump said was inaccurate or immediately debunked. And showing these videos that are historical in nature and without context did make President Ramaphosa uncomfortable. He actually struggled to watch them.

We have looked into the data and we have found no evidence of a white genocide in South Africa. Between April and December 2024, there were about just over 30 murders at farms in South Africa. Only seven of them were of farmers. South Africa does not release crime statistics by race, but the farmers tend to be white. The workers at these farms tend to be black.

So even South Africa's own data does not show any evidence of any white genocide that President Ramaphosa has tried to explain to President Trump. What President Trump has said increasingly is that their land is being seized from them and they're getting executed. And he showed that video of these 1,000 crosses.

I have been covering South Africa for 15 years. I have lived and worked in South Africa. I know many South African friends. I spoke to President Ramaphosa last week, and he told me something that he repeated about the Oval Office meeting to President Trump, that we were taught at the feet of Nelson Mandela. If there's an issue, we talk about it and we agree.

President Ramaphosa also told me last week that he'd explained this to President Trump that, when they have an issue, they discuss it. And that's why there's no evidence of this genocide that he's talking about. And South Africa, he said, is the only country in Africa where the colonizers came to stay and they have never driven them out.

So, all of these videos that -- the presentation that he made, the multimedia ambush that they have just presented with these videos and the printouts, and you can see the agriculture minister from South Africa from the D.A., that is the white majority party that has traditionally opposed the African National Congress Party of President Ramaphosa.

They're in a coalition government. And the agriculture minister is sitting there explaining that this is not true. What the videos show is Julius Malema, the far left opposition leader of South Africa. His party is called the Economic Freedom Fighters. And it also showed former President Jacob Zuma.

What Julius Malema was singing, "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer," was an anti-apartheid song from the struggle against white minority rule in South Africa. They have explained that this is not a literal attack, call to attack and kill the farmer, because of the historical nature of that.

But it's been weaponized by groups in South Africa and increasingly by the MAGA right in the United States to essentially misrepresent what is going on in the country -- Boris, Brianna.

KEILAR: Also of note, Larry, can you speak -- we heard there, and he was just sort of in the forefront of the camera shot, the agriculture minister, because it seemed that President Ramaphosa was kind of trying to show up with some backup, which is one of his ministers who is white, who is not from the same party as him, John Steenhuisen. Talk a little bit about that as he was saying that black farmers have

been affected by violence as well and that this is really part of a larger issue of violence, murder rate by the way in South Africa, multitudes the factor of what it is in the U.S., just as a reference point.

Talk a little bit about that agriculture minister and what we heard.

MADOWO: Right, that agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, who is from the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party that's in coalition with President Ramaphosa's ANC Party, he explicitly said that the reason why he joined President Ramaphosa's government is to make sure that these extremist elements within the South African political scene don't get into power.

[13:10:09]

He's referring to Julius Malema and former President Jacob Zuma. But he's -- in this position is interesting, because he has repeatedly supported President Ramaphosa's argument that there is no white genocide. Otherwise, he would not be in a government that was carrying out these -- seizing land from white farmers and executing them, as President Trump believes.

And the fact that he's the agriculture minister is especially important, because the majority of farmers in South Africa are white. They own the majority of the land. This is why it's a major political issue, because the black majorities do not own a lot of the land in South Africa.

And he, as a white Afrikaner, is the agriculture minister of South Africa, and is telling President Trump and the press there that he has not seen any evidence of white genocide in the country. And President Trump insists that it's not being reported.

In my experience reporting in South Africa, I don't think it's possible that 1,000 farmers could have been killed and buried along the roadside and there's thousands of cars paying respect without anybody noticing it. But that's what President Trump believes.

I have been speaking to some South Africans watching this live. And they say this is AfriForum propaganda. AfriForum is considered a white nationalist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And everything that President Trump has been saying in the White House is word for word their talking points.

So they have succeeded in presenting their grievances to the highest office in the land, and President Trump has put that before the president of South Africa.

KEILAR: And if you do look at some of the numbers that AfriForum itself has put out there, which is focusing on the deaths of white farmers, they're estimating it to be about 50 a year.

And that is obviously a group, as you described there, Larry, we should keep that in context compared to what the president is saying there in the Oval Office.

SANCHEZ: Yes, absolutely. And we have been monitoring the remarks as they have been going on.

Larry Madowo live for us, bringing us that reporting, thank you so much.

We have been monitoring these remarks inside the Oval Office. It appears that the conversation has now pivoted to the economy and trade. We're going to continue watching the president of South Africa and President Trump.

But we have CNN's Kylie Atwood here to give us her perspective of this meeting, obviously contentious.

The disparity is really interesting, because the South African president initially started talking about how excited he was to discuss trade, to sort of reset the investments that the U.S. is making in South Africa and vice versa. And President Trump moments later said, no, the purpose of this meeting is this white genocide that is clearly being overblown by this White House.

It's not real.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

And U.S. officials going into this meeting were telling me before it even happened that they expected that President Trump was going to focus in on this issue during the meeting. And they were worried that this could turn into a very contentious Oval Office meeting that we're watching unfold before our eyes.

I think what's important to note here, however, is, people have compared this situation to the situation that President Zelenskyy faced in the Oval Office during his first meeting there with President Trump. But that appeared to be an organic assault on Zelenskyy, when you had Vice President Vance and President Trump growing increasingly frustrated with Vance (sic) throughout that meeting.

This appears to be an orchestrated effort on behalf of Trump and his administration officials, because they played those videos, those unsubstantiated videos showing what they claimed to be genocide against white South Africans. And then you also saw the vice president hand to President Trump some papers that were stories that they claimed were stories of South African white farmers being killed at the hands of black South Africans.

So they were prepared with all of these pieces of the puzzle to really take on President Ramaphosa and put him on his backheels, even though, as you guys watched, he was repeatedly trying to pivot the conversation back to issues where he thought there could be forward movement with this administration.

KEILAR: This is, I think, a classic Trump move, though, too, where he now has people who are critics of certainly his use of the information here. He has people arguing over degrees of magnitude of killings, right?

And he's overstating the issue. What we know is, there's a huge issue with violence in South Africa. There are estimates, and the police don't keep great tabs. However, even pro-Afrikaner groups will tell you what they think the magnitude of it is.

But it's a political argument, because now people are arguing this degree of magnitude. I think what we should note, too, though, is, there are some land seizures and there are some mass killings that do not concern President Trump. And yet this is one that really does.

[13:15:00]

And something that stood out to a lot of people watching was how he said: I talk to my friends. This is something that they bring up.

We know Elon Musk has brought it up. It's something that he's hearing about just kind of in the conversations around him because of the company he keeps.

ATWOOD: Yes, that's right.

Elon Musk was in the Oval Office for this meeting that's still happening right now. He's someone who's distancing himself from the administration, but the fact that he is in the room here just tells you all you need to know about the impact of his voice on this conversation specifically.

And I think that President Trump is leaning into the MAGA perspective here, of course, that has really invigorated that portion of his party by effectively creating a crisis situation. But he doesn't have an off-ramp for it. He was asked as this was unfolding, is there a future for the U.S.-South Africa relationship here? He said he hopes so.

But he was also asked at one point during this Oval Office meeting what specifically he wants President Ramaphosa to do about what he is calling this alleged genocide in the country that obviously we have said there's no evidence over, and he didn't say anything specifically that he wants Ramaphosa to do.

So that's a pretty stark situation that we're facing. He's raising an issue, but not charting a path forward to resolve it at all.

SANCHEZ: And we're watching as another member of President Ramaphosa's team of ministers is now speaking to President Trump.

We will keep watching this meeting in the Oval Office and bring you the latest as we get it, especially if we hear from Elon Musk.

Kylie Atwood, thank you so much.

So, still ahead: Hard-line conservatives are getting in the way of Speaker Johnson's plan to push through the president's major domestic policy package. Can a sit-down at the White House convince holdouts to vote for it? A crucial meeting is set for this afternoon. We're following this tense showdown. Don't go anywhere. CNN NEWS CENTRAL returns in a moment.

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[13:21:25]

KEILAR: We are still monitoring what has been a dramatic visit from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office there with President Trump.

This has oscillated between some high drama, with President Trump kind of ambushing him with a video at one point, but then they're also talking about golfing champions and the World Cup, so they're covering a lot of different ground here.

Let's go to Kristen Holmes, who has been following this discussion, which has really been extraordinary, Kristen.

HOLMES: It is.

And what we have really seen in the last few minutes, just up until now, was a lot of the South African delegation speaking to Donald Trump, trying to dispute what was in the videos that he had shown.

And just a little bit of a reminder of how we got here. Donald Trump was asked a question of what would it take you to believe that there was not white genocide in South Africa, something Donald Trump has claimed, but there was no evidence of?

The South African president then interrupted him and said: I know what it's going to take. It's going to take him talking to members of my delegation, the people that I brought, which he notes include some famous -- world famous golfers that are from South Africa.

Then, on cue, Donald Trump turns off the lights and signals to his team to play the videos, in which they play videos that his -- he and his team say show white genocide, that show officials in South Africa chanting about white death.

Now, you heard the South African officials defending what was in that video, saying that is not a historical documentary. That is political video, that those were the opposition party. Those are not the people in power. This was a demonstration of sorts.

You have heard each of the members of this delegation talking about how, while there are hardships for everyone in South Africa in various plains, there is not white genocide, all of this, of course, stemming from the claims that Donald Trump has said about white farmers, and now the fact that we have -- he and his administration have allowed 50 of these white Afrikaner farmers to come into the United States last week on refugee status, something that he talked about.

When you hear the president, the South African president, he clearly came here trying to reset. He's even said that. He was very complimentary of Donald Trump. He said he wanted to have these conversations. He wanted to talk it out. He wanted him to hear from the people that he brought.

And then Donald Trump came with these videos, as well as with these articles that he had printed out, saying that they were hearing from thousands of people, Trump, that this was happening in South Africa.

Now, as you noted, it does appear to be going back and forth between kind of pleasantries and light conversation, Donald Trump talking to some of these world champions of golf that were there, saying, oh, he won this many different Masters and kind of joking back and forth, to these incredibly tense moments.

I mean, even you saw there the South African president didn't want to watch those videos. He seemed to be turning away from them, so a lot of tension in that room as this has started to unfold.

And I do just want to give a little bit of context here around what these meetings are generally like. This is not the whole -- supposed to be the whole meeting playing out in front of the press. Generally, what happens is, the press comes in at the top, they do a little wave, maybe take a few questions about relations between the two countries, and then the press leaves and the real meeting begins.

We have seen them now hash out this issue that Donald Trump said was going to come out in front of all of these cameras for roughly an hour now, as they have gone back and forth, the South Africans defending themselves, saying that what you see in the video is not what you're saying it is, Donald Trump really tripling down on his ideas and this notion of white genocide, which is -- again, has been unsubstantiated.

[13:25:14]

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, live at the White House, thank you so much.

Let's go back to Larry Madowo, who's been watching alongside us as this meeting has unfolded.

Larry, at the root of this argument from the White House is this expropriation law in South Africa that allows the government to essentially take land and repurpose it or redistribute it. The president was suggesting that the government is doing that unfairly.

The president of South Africa essentially said that no land has yet been taken, that this is a new law that was installed in January. Can you walk us through that and just fact-check the claims from the White House?

MADOWO: Sure, Boris.

The land expropriation without compensation bill that President Ramaphosa signed into law in January says that unused farmland can be seized by the government if it is deemed to be just, equitable and in the public interest. And, so far, no land has actually been expropriated.

And that's a point President Ramaphosa tried to make, but President Trump did not believe. This was a good day for white nationalists in South Africa. This was a

good day for AfriForum. This is the white Afrikaner lobby group that's considered a white nationalist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, because these were their talking points that President Trump has repeatedly said from the platform of the Oval Office.

So they have gotten the best possible validation they could have imagined, because the South African government, President Ramaphosa, has been trying to say this again and again and again over the past few months, and is not being understood by the White House.

I think President Ramaphosa used to be the chief negotiator for Nelson Mandela. And he told me last week: "I learned at the feet of Nelson Mandela. If there's an -- if we have an issue, we talk about it."

And he brought his most diplomatic self. He was not ready for the multimedia ambush that he received there because of this one misunderstanding of this land expropriation without compensation law. And I think the videos kind of helped sidetrack that, because the videos showed Julius Malema, the far left opposition leader, talking about kill the Boer, kill the farmer.

Now, this is a historical anti-apartheid song that many black South Africans grew up singing. And they saw it as not a literal call to kill the farmers, but as a song against white supremacy. You also saw former President Jacob Zuma make some statements in that video, and finally this video of -- supposedly of 1,000 farmers who had been killed after the land has been seized.

President Trump explicitly told Ramaphosa: You're taking their land and many of them are getting executed.

And President Ramaphosa said: We're not doing that.

But he was not believing it. And he believes that we in the media are not reporting it. After 15 years reporting in South Africa, I have found no evidence. We have looked at it again. South Africa does not release crime statistics by race, but they do release the number of farm murders.

And we looked into it from April to December 2024. There were 36 farm murders. Only seven of them were farmers. So the other 29 were likely other black or colored workers in those farms. But none of that gets understood in this kind of heat of the moment, where President Ramaphosa sits uncomfortably trying to correct an impression which he was hoping to avoid and discuss this away from the cameras.

One hour in, they're still at it, Boris.

KEILAR: There, Larry, has been debate over that song, that anti- apartheid chant, right? And for people who don't have a historical context, it does potentially appear more literal.

Talk to us about the debate that has happened inside of South Africa with the recognition of how it appears to people when they hear those words. MADOWO: It is an inflammatory song, without a doubt. And many in

South Africa, even black South Africans, don't think it should be sung in a post-apartheid world, 30 years-plus after apartheid.

But there are many who grew up under those years of white minority rule who understand the historical context of the song, "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer," that Julius Malema has made popular again. It sort of fell into disuse. It's not been that commonly sung after the end of apartheid in 1994.

But he's brought it back again to reanimate the issue of the majority of land in South Africa still being owned by white farmers. Now, to be clear, most land in South Africa is actually state-owned, so it's not owned by white or black people. But out of that farmland, a majority of it is owned by the white population, and the black population own only a tiny percentage of it.

So that's why this song brings that issue to the fore again. And, to be clear, the Economic Freedom Fighters that Julius Malema leads wants that land to be expropriated without compensation. They would want this law to go much further than it does. They think it does not go far enough. That's what they want. They did get some support in the last election, but not enough to form a government.