PoliticsDonald Trump Forced to Calm Down After He Showed South African President Video on Genocide: 'Very Riled Up'
The two presidents had opposing views about apparent White genocide in South Africa.
May 22 2025, Published 2:44 p.m. ET
Following Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, May 21, the U.S president was accused of being too heated with his guest after showing him a video about White genocide.
“Trump had gotten very riled up at the very beginning of the questions being asked,” Maggie Haberman said on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 of Trump’s reaction to Ramaphosa questioning if the video of White farmers being murdered was doctored or not.
Donald Trump Accused of Spreading Misinformation
Maggie Haberman called the president out for repeatedly spreading misinformation.
“He clearly didn’t accept what he was being told, which was just factual information,” Haberman added. “We are seeing him increasingly trying to say that something, and he has a long history of saying things that are not true.”
Haberman noted that Trump’s recent claim that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was part of the MS-13 gang was a prime example of how the president continues to spread false information.
“But in this case and in recent days, on other matters, he is saying things such as the idea that Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador, that he actually had MS-13 tattoo those letters and numbers on his hand; he did not,” she stated.
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A billionaire was the only person in the room who was able to calm Donald Trump down.
Furthermore, Anderson Cooper pointed out how Trump was forced to calm down by billionaire businessman Johann Rupert, who tried to make the U.S. president realize the genocide video wasn’t factual.
“I guess there was a billionaire, White South African billionaire, there who tried to impress upon the president that there is not a genocide going on there,” Cooper said. “It didn’t seem to ultimately obviously have the effect.”
During their White House meeting, Trump narrated the compilation video to Ramaphosa, to which the South African president reacted strongly.
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South African President Says He's 'Never Seen' Proof Depicted in Genocide Video
The South African president urged Donald Trump to 'find out' where the footage from the video was from.
“Where is that?” Ramaphosa asked the president. “Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?”
Trump responded by shaking his head to say, “No.”
“I’d like to know where that is. Because this, I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa stated.
After Trump continued to suggest the video footage was taken in South Africa, the country’s president urged, “We need to find out.”
Afrikaners own half of the farmland in South Africa.
Claims of genocide in South Africa stem from White farmers, known as Afrikaners, making up only seven percent of the population despite owning half of the country’s farmland.
Though Trump tried to stress that White farmers are being killed and having their land stolen by those who murdered them, Ramaphosa noted that the majority of murders in South Africa are of Black folk and not Afrikaners.
