“Turn The Lights Down”: Trump Shames South African President, Plays “White Genocide” Video

Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office on Wednesday with videos he claimed were evidence of “white genocide.”

Ramaphosa was meeting the U.S. president to try to defuse tensions after Trump gave a group of white Afrikaners refugee status.

The resettlement came after claims that white farmers were being targeted and murdered, and that the government was stealing land without compensation.

Trump ally Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, agreed with the allegations and has previously claimed there was a “white genocide” in the country.

As Trump and Ramaphosa talked in the White House, tensions began to rise. Trump asked for the lights to be dimmed so he could show footage, and he said it backed up the claims.

The compilation of clips, which was over four minutes long, included footage of white crosses on a roadside.

“This is very bad, these are burial sites right here, burial sites, over 1,000 of white farmers, and those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning,” Trump said.

“Each one of those white things you see is a cross. There are approximately 1,000 of them, they’re all white farmers, the family of white farmers.”

“Those cars aren’t driving, they’re stopped there to pay respect to their family member who was killed.

“It’s a terrible sight, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Have they told you where that is, Mr President? I’d like to know where that is,” a baffled Ramaphosa replied. “This I’ve never seen.”

“This is in South Africa,” Trump told him.

This specific video has been circulating online since September 2020, with social media users also repeating the claim that each cross signifies a white farmer who was killed.

Although the footage has resurfaced multiple times between 2020 and 2025, often presented as new, the crosses shown were not actual graves but part of a temporary protest display.

The clip is understood to be from a protest on September 5, 2020, after the murder of white farming couple Glenn and Vida Rafferty in Normandien, near Newcastle.

Several local media reports from 2020 show that the crosses were part of a peaceful protest regarding farm murders and were later removed.

At the time, one demonstrator, Bob Hoasten, told South Africa’s Sunday Tribune that the protest was not about white farmers, but it was “for people from all walks of life who were concerned about farm murders.”

A spokesperson for the South African Institute of Race Relations told ABC News: “Those crosses are not graves, yet they are crosses commemorating farm murder victims.

“They were displayed temporarily as part of a processional protest following the murders of Glenn and Vida Rafferty, who were killed on their farm in Normandien in KwaZulu-Natal.

“The crosses were removed afterwards.”

The case did amplify claims from right-wing groups of a white genocide in the country.

Four people were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the Rafferty murders during an armed robbery.

Also in the footage Trump played was South African opposition figure and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the boer [white farmer], shoot the farmer.”

The song came around during South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and was meant to express anger toward the apartheid system and the white minority government at the time.

In 2011, a court ruled that the controversial song constituted hate speech, though a later ruling in 2022 said it was protected as political expression.

Remaining calm and trying to explain the footage to Trump, Ramaphosa said: “That is not government policy. We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”

“And in many cases, or in some cases, those policies do not go along with government policy.”

“Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying, even in the Parliament, and a small minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our Constitution,” Ramaphosa added.

“You do allow them to take land, and when they take the land they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer nothing happens to them,” Trump responded.

“No,” Ramaphosa replied. “There is criminality in our country, people who do get killed unfortunately through criminal activity are not only white people.”

Ramaphosa continued: “The majority of them are black people, and we have now—” but Trump quickly interrupted, saying, “The farmers are not black. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but the farmers are not black.”

During the meeting, Trump also held up a printout of a blog post that showed a photo of Red Cross workers responding after women were raped and burned alive during a jailbreak in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

While the article from the American Thinker was on African tribalism, Trump suggested the image showed white farmers being buried, according to Barron’s.

Earlier this year, a South African court dismissed claims of a white genocide and said they were “not real” and “clearly imagined.”

While crime statistics released by the South African Police Service do not specify race, figures released in February show a 10% decrease in murders.

This was still an average of 75 people killed per day.

Between October and December 2024, there were 6,953 murders, compared to 7,710 for the same period in 2023.

There were 12 recorded murders on farms—one victim was a farmer, four were employees and five were farm dwellers.

The tense Oval Office meeting comes after Trump granted asylum status to a group of 54 Afrikaners.

In February, Trump signed an executive order announcing the resettlement and stating aid to South Africa would be axed.

“The United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation,” the order read.

In response, South Africa disputed all the claims and said allegations of discrimination are unfounded.

It described the resettlement of Afrikaners as “entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy.”

Trump has also taken issue with South Africa bringing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice regarding Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.