Watch: Karoline Leavitt Uses AP Photo to Fire Back Against Reporter's 'Ridiculous' South Africa Question
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt encouraged an NBC News correspondent Thursday to take it up with the Associated Press if she did not like the way President Donald Trump referred to a memorial to slain South African farmers.
During an Oval Office meeting Wednesday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump addressed the issue of the murder of white Afrikaner farmers.
He said, “We have thousands of stories talking about it. And we have documentaries. We have news stories.”
“Turn the lights down and just put this on. It’s right behind you,” Trump told Ramaphosa, referring to a television screen.
At one point during the video, Trump pointed to the screen, which showed an aerial view of a rural road lined with white crosses, saying, “These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites — over a thousand of white farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross, and there’s approximately a thousand of them. They’re all white farmers. The family of white farmers.”
WATCH: @POTUS shows South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a video compilation of what’s taking place against white farmers in South Africa pic.twitter.com/80rQqiT2qi
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 21, 2025
“I’d like to know where that is, because, this — I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa responded.
“I mean, it’s in South Africa,” Trump said.
Factcheck.org reported that the demonstration was held on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020, on a rural road about 200 miles southeast of Johannesburg.
It was intended to memorialize the deaths of Glen and Vida Rafferty, white South African farmers who had been killed during a robbery at their farmhouse, as well as the many others who had been murdered over the years.
The Witkruis Monument in South Africa. Each white cross represents a murder from a farm attack. The road on both sides is lined with memorials, represents even more White farmer murders in South Africa at the hands of racist blacks.
Democrats believe White famers aren’t worth… pic.twitter.com/tAp87aMRnA
— Dane (@UltraDane) May 15, 2025
NBC News White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked Leavitt, “The president showed a video that he said showed more than a thousand burial sites of white South Africans that he said were murdered. We know that that was not true, and that the video wasn’t showing it. So I wonder, why did the president choose to show that?”
“What’s not true?” Leavitt replied.
The press secretary continued, “The video showed images of crosses in South Africa about white farmers who have been killed and politically persecuted because of the color of their skin. And those crosses are representing their lives … and the fact that they’re now dead. And their government did nothing about it.”
.@PressSec nukes Fake News @Yamiche for LYING about the burial ground of white farmers killed in South Africa pic.twitter.com/BhCTGumnoz
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025
“I’m disputing the fact that the president showed what he claimed it showed, because it did not show that,” Alcindor reiterated.
“What protocols are in place when there is unsubstantiated information being put out for the world?” the reporter asked.
Leavitt directed her to a caption of an Associated Press picture taken of the memorial, which read, “Each cross marks a white farmer who has been killed in a farm murder.” The White House posted the picture with its AP caption on X, while tagging Alcindor.
“You should take it up with them if you believe the claim is unsubstantiated, and that’s a ridiculous line of questioning,” Leavitt concluded.
FYI: @Yamiche — this is from the @AP pic.twitter.com/UfzMhbUuDK
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025
Regarding the killing of farmers, data compiled by the Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa — a commercial farmers’ union made up mostly of Afrikaners — shows that there were 32 farm murders in 2024, down from 50 in 2023 and 43 in 2022. There have been a total of almost 2,300 farm murders since 1990.
Factcheck.org noted that most, if not all, the farmers murdered were white.
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