Chicago Saturday, May 24 2025
Trump Shares Misleading Video with South African President
During a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, former President Donald Trump claimed that white South African farmers, especially Afrikaners, were being targeted in a “genocide.” To support his claim, he showed Ramaphosa a video, previously circulated by his advisor Elon Musk, which depicted a road lined with white crosses and mourners. Trump described the scene as a mass burial site for over a thousand white farmers, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” A confused Ramaphosa asked about the video’s location, to which Trump replied, “South Africa.”
The Truth Behind the Video
Although the footage was indeed filmed in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, it was not a burial site as Trump claimed. Nathan Rafferty, a white South African now living in Australia, clarified that the crosses were part of a memorial for his parents, Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were murdered on their farm in 2020. The local community created the display as a tribute and protest, but no bodies were buried at the site. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump, stating the video symbolized victims of racial persecution, though she acknowledged the crosses were not actual grave markers. Trump also mistakenly presented a photo from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, incorrectly identifying it as from South Africa.
