Media Attacks Trump Asking Who Is Killing South African Farmers

Which is worse: murdering people or a discussion attempting to end murders?

The shameless propaganda press heaped criticism on President Donald Trump on Wednesday for daring to talk with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about alleged genocide in his country, reported by white South African farmers seeking refuge in the United States.

With coordinated messaging, the mighty propaganda brotherhood portrayed honest communication as a bad thing, calling the conversation an “ambush” over “debunked conspiracy theories.”

Minutes after the meeting, The New York Times characterized it as “contentious.” It wasn’t. Both Trump and Ramaphosa were polite and courteous throughout the discussion. The Times filed the story so quickly that it had no time to investigate. But it was still able to assert that Trump made “false genocide claims.”

In February, Trump issued an executive order freezing aid to South Africa and giving Afrikaners refugee status in the U.S.

Afrikaners are a white ethnic group with primarily Dutch ancestry. Many are farmers. Trump said in the meeting that white farmers are having their homes burned, their farms seized, and have either been killed or fear for their lives.

South Africa passed a law that allows the government to take land from farmers without compensation.

The Washington Post minimized the deaths of white farmers, saying violence in South Africa is not isolated to rural areas and not only against white people. Apparently if one group is victimized, then another group is victimized, none of the victimization matters.

“South Africa does not release crime statistics based on race, which makes it difficult to identify killings of White farmers,” The Washington Post reads. “Official police data shows 12 people were killed on farms between October and December 2024 — a period during which 6,953 people were murdered in the country. South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, the data shows, and has been plagued by violent crime for decades.

The Post fails to connect the long-held desire to seize land from white farmers with their deaths.

Similarly, PBS wants folk to know that yes, white farmers have been murdered. But not many. Not enough to matter. Not enough to say genocide. The left gets hung up on the word genocide, but it doesn’t value individual lives.

Trump was not addressing all the deaths in the country. He was looking at a segment of deaths that are politically motivated and are preventable. Everyone in the room acknowledged that connection and agreed something should be done. But the Washington Post and many others presented these deaths as a myth.

During Wednesday’s Oval Office meeting, filled with members of the media, Trump said Ramaphosa called him and asked for the meeting. After brief conversation, a reporter asked Trump what it would take to convince him that there’s no white genocide in South Africa.

Trump said the administration has heard thousands of stories about violence against white farmers. Then he had the lights dimmed and showed Ramaphosa videos of people in South Africa calling for the killing of white farmers.

In the video, Julius Malema, leader of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighter Party, led a violent chant inside a large stadium , as supporters danced and chanted along.

“Shoot to kill the farmer! Go after the white man! You are going to run, white farmer.”  The video ended with cars lined up on a desolate road with some 1,000 crosses lining the road, each representing a dead farmer, Trump relayed. In the cars were family members there to mourn.

Ramaphosa asked where the line of cars was, saying he had never seen it before.

Next there was silence in the room for about 40 seconds.

Silence is a powerful moment in negotiation. Whoever breaks silence first loses. Trump told Ramaphosa before the troubling video that he wanted to know what he had to say about it. Now a pall fell over the room as everyone, the president, the media, the world waited for Ramaphosa to speak.

And the loser was: NBC’s Peter Alexander, who broke the silence, changed the topic, and ruined the moment, but saved Ramaphosa.

“Mr. President, the Pentagon announced they would be accepting a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One —”

Trump cut him off, saying the jet was a great thing.  

“We’re talking about a lot of other things here. This is NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw,” Trump said.

Usually the propaganda press interferes with foreign affairs through its reporting, but Alexander interfered in real time.

Trump managed to get the conversation back on track, questioning Ramaphosa on farmers being killed .

You would not know it from news reports calling the meeting an “ambush,” but Ramaphosa didn’t deny people have died, just that it was not his fault.

Ramaphosa said that Julius Malema, shown in the videos, is not in his administration but from a much smaller opposition political party. Trump estimated 100,000 people chanting in the stadium, saying this is not a small movement.

“Why wouldn’t you arrest that man?” Trump asked. “That man said, ‘Kill the white farmers. Kill the white farmers.’ And then he danced, and he’s dancing, dancing, and it’s ‘Kill the white farmers.’ I think, I’m not sure, but I think if somebody got up in Parliament and started saying, ‘kill’ a certain group of people that you would be in, he would be arrested very quickly.”

Trump mentioned the law allowing the seizure of property, which Ramaphosa acknowledged.   

“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they’re being killed,” Trump said. “We’re being inundated with people, with white farmers from South Africa. And a it’s big problem. Marco Rubio was telling me he’s never seen anything like it. The numbers of people that want to leave South Africa because they feel they’re going to be dead.”

Ramaphosa noted that John Steenhuisen, his Minister of Agriculture, is white and asked him to speak.

Steenhuisen said that there are memorials for people who have died from “farm attacks.”

“We have a real safety problem. I don’t think anyone wants to candy coat it, and it requires a lot of effort to get on top of it. It is going to require more policing resources. It’s going to require different strategies to be able to deal with it,” Steenhuisen said. “The majority of South Africa’s commercial and smaller farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work.”

Ramaphosa said the U.S. could help with resources so the government can respond to the violence but did not specify if he wanted money or equipment.  

He is asking for aid to combat violence the propaganda press says doesn’t exist.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.