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Pres. Trump, South African President Take Questions in Oval Office; Trump Defends Accepting White South Africans as Refugees; Trump Makes Unsubstantiated Claims of Genocide in South Africa. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 21, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I know that it's being handled by various groups, I guess, but it is major fraud, mortgage documents and fraudulent everything. I think she said the father was her husband which -- she had to have a husband or -- so she chose her father and she put it down. And she has had -- didn't she sign in Virginia yet? She said she lived in Virginia, yet she's the New York State Attorney General, and she did that for tax reasons, so she could take advantage of taxes. And she had the wrong number of units. She had a much different number, which wouldn't have allowed her to qualify and scam the government. So, I don't know. I think she's very bad for New York, but I really don't know too much about it. But I appreciate the question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- to be convinced that is a genocide.

TRUMP: Please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. So May 25th will be the celebration of Africa Day, which pretty much a lot of celebration will be taking place around the world, including here in the United States. What is your message to the entire African continent, African people in this important occasion?

TRUMP: Well, I want to see peace and I want to see happiness. I want to see health. You have incredible land. There's tremendous value. A lot of countries don't have that value in the land, the value you have. We have a situation, I think you probably heard about it, we've done through some very talented people, help settle a war that's been raging for years, Rwanda and the Congo. And I think we've done it, believe it or not, I think we've done it. And could you just say a few words about that, my friend?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. A couple of weeks ago, we signed -- they signed -- the two parties signed a Declaration of Principle in which they've agreed on the way forward. And we are -- they have both submitted the draft peace agreements and we have put together one that incorporates both of their suggestions and we've given it to them. So, we are in the process of finalizing peace (ph) deal.

TRUMP: Looking good?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking very good.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA, PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA: No, we have to thank you for even those efforts because the African continent, particularly Southern African development community has for years been seeking to foster peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So all efforts, including those from outside the continent and inside the continent, are really worthwhile. We have just -- we are removing our troops from there so that peace can then prevail in that whole area. And we hope that with the support of the international community, we will --

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': We're going to continue to monitor this meeting between the President of the United States and the President of South Africa in the Oval Office. As we do, we're going to discuss what we have heard so far.

We'll just start by saying that Peter Alexander of NBC News asked the question, and that question important one, is about the fact that while refugee programs are being stopped in the United States by the Trump administration, while as the president repeated again, they're trying to remove as many of those previously legally allowed refugees and nevermind undocumented immigrants, they're allowing white Afrikaners from South Africa to come into the United States. Legitimate question.

And you heard part of what the president said in answer to that. David Chalian, kind of turning it back to the immigration lines that we hear a lot from him, but sort of underlying all of that is what he admitted is going to be part of the tough conversation between the two of them.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah.

BASH: Which is that you have a lot of people in his ear and in that room, Elon Musk being one of them, who is suddenly back in Washington, who are making allegations against the -- this president's government. And they claim that the whites in South Africa are being discriminated against in a -- he even used the word apartheid, a new apartheid

CHALIAN: Genocide. He used the word genocide.

BASH: Yeah.

CHALIAN: And that is a debunked claim. There is no evidence of a genocide going on in South Africa. That doesn't exist. And yet, the president of the United States sitting in the Oval Office next to his counterpart just used that as a term, not that he was necessarily accuse (ph), but like that, that's been talked about the way that Trump does with language.

Dana, not only did he welcome the ability to talk about this topic, he said this is the purpose of the meeting. I mean, you heard the South African President come with a whole list of things as we were discussing, like, very well practiced brief here. Like the decorations in the Oval Office are great, and let's talk about trade, this important issue and where our countries can work together.

BASH: We brought you a golf book.

(LAUGH)

CHALIAN: Yeah, a golf book.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: A golfer, the golfer you signed.

CHALIAN: And the golfer, Exactly.

(LAUGH)

[12:35:00]

CHALIAN: But this issue is not one that the South African President brought up, even though all the -- we expected this to be -- the president of the United States said this is the purpose of the meeting. And so, we didn't get the South African President's response to that. I don't -- obviously, we've heard him previously. He doesn't think there's a genocide going on in this country.

BASH: Yeah.

CHALIAN: And doesn't see the facts of that either. So I'm not quite sure how that meeting then takes place, where that conversation goes from there.

BASH: Well, and it was interesting that the South African President very well could have jumped in to say, no, no, that's not true. But he, like every other world leader on the planet, saw what happened when Zelenskyy did that in the Oval Office.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Because I mean, it would mean explaining the history of South Africa to Donald Trump. He doesn't apparently know that part of what's going on in South Africa is how do you address the fact that the majority African population had been oppressed for generations and generations, and their land taken away, and an inability to move forward in society for decades and decades and decades. And the South African government is trying to right that wrong.

And so this idea, I think that, these white South Africans are the oppressed, really, I think dovetails with Donald Trump's role as like the patron saint of white grievance politics, right? He is the defender of white people here. He's also the defender of white people in South Africa. So. he is welcoming them as oppressed. He can't see any oppression of black folks in South Africa. He can't see any oppression of anyone else who might be coming from South America either.

Their oppression is invisible to him. What he really feels and what his base really feels is this idea that is actually white people, be they in South Africa or be they in America, that are oppressed.

BASH: OK. We see that this meeting is continuing. We're going to sneak in a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We will be back with more of what's happening there and other news going on here in Washington and around the world. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:43]

BASH: Welcome back. As we monitor what is happening in the Oval Office, you see a video plank that is in the Oval Office of the White House. We're going to again monitor it, but luckily, we have White House reporters here who have on their phones running explanation and reporting from the White House pool about what is happening. And as you saw, if there's a video playing there, it is a pretty good indicator that things have devolved in this meeting. Tyler, can you explain what's happened?

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, so, as we were talking before the break there, we were waiting to see how the South African President would respond to the claims that Trump was making, unsubstantiated claims about genocide against white farmers. It seems since we took a break, the reporters kept asking questions about that and there's been some arguing inside the Oval Office about those claims. The South African President has encouraged Trump to listen to other voices that he said would dispute those claims.

Trump didn't seem to be interested in hearing about that. And so now, he has asked his aide, Natalie Harp, to play this video in the Oval Office. It's obviously playing right now. And our understanding is the point of this video is to back up some of the claims that Trump has made about South Africa. It seems this is clearly a well orchestrated effort.

BASH: Yes.

PAGER: They've brought screens, there's not usually TV in the Oval Office, and they were prepared to do this.

HENDERSON: Yeah, this is a --

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, ASSOCIATED PRESS: It's an ambush. I mean, they're really --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

BASH: I was going to say set up, but ambush works too.

MIN KIM: Right. Right. And I think, at some point, my reporter, my colleagues who are following this meeting, they're saying, at some points, the South African President was kind of looking forward, kind of trying not to watch, although obviously the president, President Trump is very much engaged in this video that is playing, which is why, I mean, I think we all anticipated that at some point, this meeting would go awry and in full view of the cameras, which is what happened with President Zelenskyy a few months ago.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Listen, in going in, I'm sure the South African President knew of the risks, which is why he brought the golfer and the flattery, and initially, didn't want to answer, right? When this idea about unsubstantiated claims came up. But, here we have --

BASH: Nia, let's just listen in because it looks like the South African president is talking.

TRUMP: I mean, it's in South Africa this week.

RAMAPHOSA: I need to find out.

TRUMP: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, the Pentagon announced that it would be accepting a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One.

TRUMP: What are you talking about?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You know, you got to get out of here. What does this have to do with the Qatari jet? They're giving the United States Air Force a jet, OK? And it's a great thing. We're talking about a lot of other things. It is NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real -- you're a terrible reporter.

[12:45:00]

Number one, you don't have what it takes to be a reporter. You're not smart enough. But for you to go into a subject about a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which is a very nice thing, they also gave $5.1 trillion worth of investment in addition to the jet. Go back, you ought to go back to your studio at NBC because Brian Robertson (ph), the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.

They are so terrible, the way you run that network, and you are a disgracing. No more questions from you, go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Go ahead. Talk about that. His name is Peter something, he's a terrible reporter.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Quiet, quiet, quiet. Let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much, President Trump. And (inaudible) from EMCA (ph) in South Africa. Thank you very much.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What would you like President Ramaphosa to do about the situation that we've just seen on the screen?

TRUMP: I don't know. Look, these are articles over the last few days, death of people. Death, death, death, horrible death, deaths -- I don't know, pick anyone. White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and racist laws. And this is all, OK, I mean, I'll give these to you.

BASH: We're going to now go to Daniel Dale because there is a lot to unpack here. Daniel, I know you want to talk about this and I want you to talk about this. I just want to say one thing beforehand. Peter Alexander is a terrific reporter, and he is not just there for NBC News. He is there representing the pool, the television network pool, and he asked important questions that all of us want answered.

Daniel, that is on the Qatari jet, which we'll get to in a bit. Let's just start with what we believe is happening there. I mean, you see the president holding up what he says is evidence of what he claims is genocide. As David Chalian said, and I want you to add to this, those are unsubstantiated claims. What he did by bringing a video into the Oval Office, televisions just aren't hanging out in the Oval Office. This was a very scripted, strategic move.

And what they played looked like some kind of video, which you could hear the president saying, this is proof of -- President Trump saying this is proof of genocide. And the South African president was kind of forced to figure out how to play it on the fly. And I believe I heard him saying something like, we'll look into it. Daniel?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, that's right. So let's look at what the facts actually show. The facts show that South Africa is a country with a very high number of violent crimes. But the facts also show, Dana, that a tiny number of those violent crimes are committed against white farmers. So, official data in South Africa, which is matched by data from advocacy groups, shows that in the last nine months of last year, 2024, there were about 20,000 murders in the country of South Africa. Again, a terribly high number. How many of those murders were committed on farms? 36.

BASH: Daniel, stand by. I want to hear the South African President speaking now.

DALE: Go ahead.

RAMAPHOSA: We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves, political parties to adhere to various policies. 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 they're a small minority party, which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution. TRUMP: But you do allow them to take land.

RAMAPHOSA: No, no, no, no.

TRUMP: You do allow them to take land.

RAMAPHOSA: Nobody can take land.

TRUMP: And then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.

RAMAPHOSA: No, there is quite -- nothing happens. There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people, majority of them are black people. And we have, now --

TRUMP: The farmers are not black. The farmers are not black.

RAMAPHOSA: We --

TRUMP: I don't say that is good or bad, but the farmers are not black. And the people that are being killed in large numbers, and you saw all those grave sites, and those are people that loved ones going, I guess on a Sunday morning, they told me to pay respect to their loved ones that were killed. Their heads chopped off. They died violently.

And I mean, we are here to talk about it and I didn't know we'd get involved here, but I will say this, that if the news wasn't fake, like NBC, which is fake news, totally one of the worst, ABC, NBC, CBS, horrible.

[12:50:00]

But if they weren't fake news, like this jerk that we have here, we had real reporters, they'd be covering it. But the fake news in this country doesn't talk about that. They don't want to talk about it, but now they have to talk about it. But they won't, this won't even be a subject. They'll have him talking about why did a country give a free thing -- think of this -- why did a country give an airplane to the United States Air Force? OK.

The United States, not to me, to the United States Air Force. So they could help us out because we need an Air Force One until our -- such (ph) Air Force One, it's being built, two of them being built. But Boeing's a little bit late, unfortunately. So why did they give us a plane to the United States Air Force? That's what that idiot talks about, after viewing a thing where thousands of people are dead.

RAMAPHOSA: I'm sorry, I don't have a plane to give you.

TRUMP: I wish you did.

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: I would take -- if your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.

RAMAPHOSA: OK. But coming back to this issue, which I really would like us to talk about and talk about it very calmly. We were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around a table and talk about them.

TRUMP: Well, there are problems.

RAMAPHOSA: And this is precisely what we would also like to talk about including, of course, trade matters, investment matters. So, the issues that concern you as the United States and --

TRUMP: Those are all issues, those are all deaths.

RAMAPHOSA: Yeah. In many ways, I mean, one should say you are a partner, partner of South Africa, and that you are raising concerns. And these are concerns that we are willing to talk to you about. Let me just add quickly, the criminality that we're experiencing in our country needs quite a lot of technological capability. And in one of our areas in South Africa, we're using U.S. technology which is able to, in many ways, identify where shootings are happening and all that.

And I'd like to talk about that because there is support that we can get from you and the United States to help us deal with all these act of criminality. And that is what I believe partnership is all about. And we are here as a partner, so that we can help each other whenever there are challenges. So, I'd like us to discuss it and of course, outside of the media, so that we sit down and have a really good discussion that will lead to good outcomes.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are there any other punitive measures that could be in place, should you not be satisfied that South Africa is fixing some of the very bad things and many problems that you treated are happening?

TRUMP: Well, there are a lot of bad things happening in many countries, but this in particular has been very, very bad. Very bad. And because of -- we're going to have the whole world watching in another short period of time because you have to G20. And that's a big deal. And it seems like, I mean, I want you to look good. I don't want you to look bad.

RAMAPHOSA: Very good.

TRUMP: But you -- we have hundreds of people, thousands of people trying to come into our country because they feel they're going to be killed and their land is going to be confiscated. And you do have laws that were passed that gives you the right to confiscate land for no payment. You can take away land for no payment.

RAMAPHOSA: I want to clarify that because we have a constitution. A constitution guarantees and protects the sanctity of tenure of land ownership. And that constitution protects all South Africans with regard to land ownership. However, we do say, because we've got to deal with the past, the government, and as your government also has the right to expropriate land for public use.

TRUMP: And you're doing that.

RAMAPHOSA: And what -- we've never really gotten underway with that. And we are going to be doing that.

TRUMP: No, you're taking -- you're taking people's land away from them.

RAMAPHOSA: We have not.

TRUMP: And those people in many cases are being executed. They're being executed and they happen to be white and most of them happen to be farmers. And that's a tough situation. I don't know how you explain that. How do you explain that? They're taking people's land away. And in many cases, those people are being executed. And in many cases, it's not the government that's doing it. It's people that kill them and then take their land and nothing happens to them. But we have thousands of people that want to come into our country. They're also going to Australia in a smaller number. But we have thousands of people that want to come into our country and they're white farmers and they feel that they're going to die in South Africa.

[12:55:00]

And it's a bad thing. Yeah, of course.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What can South Africa do? What concessions would you like to see them make to improve relations with the United States? Then I have one more for President Ramaphosa afterwards.

TRUMP: Well, we just spoke about it. I got them a very, very complex machine, 150 of them. I was asked by the president if we can help, and I did that. And I have great feeling for all countries. Look, I deal with all countries. But I have a great feeling for South Africa because I have friends. I have a couple of friends, a few friends here today. I have many friends from South Africa.

But, many of those friends are not -- they can't go back. I have -- Elon is from South Africa. I don't want to get Elon involved. That's all I have to do, get him into another thing. But Elon happens to be from South Africa. This is what Elon wanted. He actually came here on a different subject, sending rockets to Mars. OK?

ELON MUSK, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

TRUMP: He likes that better. He likes that subject better.

MUSK: That's right.

TRUMP: But Elon is from South Africa and I don't want to talk to him about that. I don't want to -- I don't think it's fair to him.

MUSK: That's right. TRUMP: But I will say that people are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated and in many cases, they're being killed. And that scene of -- you see how many crosses they have, those crosses, that's a dead person in every one of them. And those trucks or cars are paying their respects to all of those dead people on a Sunday morning. That's a rough -- that's a rough thing to explain away.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And the problem we have and the way a correct and a fair media exposes things, but we have a very corrupt media. They won't even report this. If this were the other way around, it would be the biggest story. Now, I will say apartheid, terrible. That was the biggest story that was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What's happening now is never reported. Nobody knows about it.

BASH: OK, we're going to continue to monitor what has been a truly extraordinary, what, half an hour plus inside the Oval Office. I just -- I want to go back to Daniel Dale because there's a lot of fact checking to do. But as we were watching and talking here, just want to point out to our viewers that this is something that the president is taking a lot of time on, is clearly passionate about.

We're going to fact check whether his passions are misguided or how misguided they are. But he's also dealing with his legislative agenda on the balance, hanging by a thread, which he'll have a meeting on this afternoon. Ukraine, the Middle East, so many other issues on his plate, not to mention the economy. And this is where he is, which is the issue that he was elected on, if you look at exit polls for voters, and this is the fight that the president feels is important for him to have at this moment. Now the facts, Daniel, take it away.

DALE: Quickly. Last nine months of 2024 in South Africa, 19,696 murders. How many of them occurred on farms? 36. 36, about 0.2 percent. That includes employees like security staff, farm workers. How many of them were actual farmers? Seven out of more than 19,000. And it's not even clear that those are all white farmers. Contrary to what the president said, many farmers in South Africa are black. Even the white ones who have been victims of crime, it's not clear, have been targeted for racial reasons.

Experts and white farmers themselves in South Africa have repeatedly told media outlets and think tanks that they feel they are often targeted for robbery and even attacks because they're geographically isolated and therefore vulnerable. So that is bad, but that is not genocide. And who else was skeptical of the genocide narrative, Dana? The Trump administration in 2020. The first Trump administration put out a report saying that some advocacy groups asserted that white farmers are being targeted for burglaries and killings.

But many observers, "attributed the incidents to the country's high and growing crime rate." According to the Institute for Security Studies, "Farm attacks and farm murders have increased in recent years in line with the general upward trend in South Africa's serious and violent crimes." And the Trump State Department went on to note that in 2018 and 2019, "Only 0.2 percent of those killings happened on farms," again, in line with the recent data. So, I don't think this genocide claim about South Africa is a he said, he said kind of dispute. I think it is clearly undermined, debunked by the facts we have available.

BASH: Well done as always, Daniel. Thank you. We have about 20 seconds. David Chalian, he just got into the specifics. Give us the big picture.

CHALIAN: 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 --