Other images displayed by Trump during meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa were false or misleading

The evidence of supposed mass killings of white South Africans presented by Donald Trump in a tense White House meeting on Wednesday were in some cases images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while footage shown during the meeting was falsely portrayed as depicting “burial sites”.

“These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by a picture during the contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The picture accompanying the article was in fact a screengrab of a video published by Reuters on 3 February and subsequently verified by the news agency’s fact check team, showing humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot after deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

    • epicstove@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      Honestly, I don’t know if he’s knowingly lying or just genuinely fucking stupid.

      • Tiger@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        Fun fact, it’s both! He knows he’s lying all the time and doesn’t care. He’s also stupid.

        • vortexsurfer@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          My theory is that he’s so narcissistic that he genuinely believes every thought that comes into his mind is the truth.

          • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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            16 days ago

            hes like the system lords, they believe in thier own bs, because of thier narccistic personalities, except one.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          This is the right answer. Life has already shown him that operating on a level playing field and being honest, really doesn’t get a guy like him very far. So the genius workaround is to lie your pants off instead, and build an alternative environment around yourself where you can’t lose.

      • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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        16 days ago

        Fascists can never admit that they’re wrong, becauae then their vaneer of being infallible immediately falls apart.

        I still remember back in 2015-2016 when 4chan called Trump “God Emperor.” That mentality hasn’t gone away. Fascism is a cult.

        The only “truth” that fascists believe is the “truth” of the fascist leader. Trump even calls his social media platform “Truth Social” FFS. It couldn’t be more blatent.

      • Yermaw@lemm.ee
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        16 days ago

        In his defence (feels dirty and weird typing that) he’s probably being lied to. I have very little clue about the legitimacy of information I get on world news, as everybody has an agenda and misinformation is so easy to create and disseminate. If he’s got to be on the case with basically every issue, he’ll just be getting fed information and has to trust that his advisors know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t bother fact checking everything if I were in that position, there’s simply not enough hours in the day.

        Of course he’s also a confirmed liar and a known prick so who knows.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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      16 days ago

      How does that happen? Who goes “text text text, blah blah blah, now I need a specific flag, let’s definitely type ‘flag’ and tediously look for the right one, because typing [country name] would be too easy”? I get that they look VERY similar and I couldn’t tell you which one is which if they’re side-by-side but that doesn’t fucking matter if you simply ask your keyboard for the country! Gaaaaaawddddddd.

      Romania: 🇷🇴 Chad: 🇹🇩

      Same for stereotypical USians going “yeeeeah 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷”

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    16 days ago

    Ramaphosa was right to ask “I’d like to know where that is”, when the “evidence” was shown to him live.

    Other world leaders should be prepared to challenge Trump right to his face when he fabricates lies like this in those pathetic ambush attempts.

    • Amberskin@europe.pub
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      15 days ago

      No other world leader should accept an invite to the WH. Right now it’s 100% an ambush.

    • HiddenLychee@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I once got into an argument with a south African on reddit about white genocide. Even over there it’s a political issue, but the way he and many people describe it makes it seem like if you even set foot there as a white person you’ll get mugged.

      I was saying I lived there for six months, spent a lot of town in the townships where it was only black people, and I legit never once was harmed. Yeah it’s dangerous but like, they act like they’ve never been in a dangerous neighborhood in the states.

      But because I was an American sharing this perspective and they were South African, I got relentlessly shamed by redditors. To be fair I get where they’re coming from. If you have no clue about the issue and someone from another country trying to say something said about that persons own country is BS, it doesn’t look good. But it’s literally a political topic and he was coming at it from the extreme right perspective. Because I’m an American, like a dozen people took away from that thread that white genocide is real.

        • TheRealKuni@midwest.social
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          16 days ago

          They should leave, go back to Holland or wherever they came from

          They didn’t take land. Their ancestors did. They were born and grew up in South Africa.

          And yes, they benefitted from an absolutely horrible system of apartheid.

          But telling them to “go back where they came from” is racist AF, just like it is when said to a brown person in the States. Don’t be that guy. They are where they came from.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            16 days ago

            And it’s always land, isn’t it. Inheriting some land, in this day and age, is worth much less than a good education.

            Inheriting industries is much more problematic and can be solved, completely without reference to skin colour, by taxation. To fund the previously mentioned education.

  • RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    I don’t think anybody in our federal government that’s in charge of anything has any good intentions at all at this point

  • Charlxmagne@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    To choose SA of all places for this particular agenda has to be the most ironic thing I’ve heard in a while 🤦‍♂️ quite brave asw considering Musk’s family history

  • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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    16 days ago

    funny how the racists come out in the comments as soon as any thread mentions white genocide.

    • Distractor@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      The one was a picture of a large number of crosses which Trump said was a burial site for 1000s of white farmers, when it was in fact a memorial following the death of 2 farmers. The memorial was intended to represent all farm deaths of all races. Farm deaths are an issue but the victims are of all races - they kill the farmers, their families and the workers.

      There was a video of a political leader singing a song that translates to “Kill the Boer” i.e. kill the white Afrikaans farmer. This video is: a) more than a decade old, b) from a rally of a minority opposition party i.e. not the political party of the people Trump was meeting, c) from a political party that has been losing votes in recent elections, led by someone who was expelled from the ruling party, d) is of a historic protest song from the apartheid era i.e. more than 30 years ago.

      This video resulted in a court case, where the court concluded that a “reasonably well-informed person” would understand that when a protest song is sung “even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence.”

      This video was a big deal at the time but it’s not current, not representative of the government’s view, and the person depicted in it is increasingly being sidelined in South African politics.

      • NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        While Trump is definitely exaggerating what’s happening there, I think you’re downplaying it a bit too much.

        This video is: a) more than a decade old,

        There were multiple videos, but the concerning part here is it looks like even in recent rallies Julius Malema has continued with this chant: https://web.archive.org/web/20250502020122/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/world/africa/south-africa-kill-boer-song.html

        It is ridiculous that there were no dates/locations for anything in these clips given what Trump is trying to claim here.

        b) from a rally of a minority opposition party i.e. not the political party of the people Trump was meeting,

        Yes, but it’s worth pointing out that the EFF is still one of the more popular parties. The 3rd or 4th largest party from what I can tell based on this list (and from what other articles have mentioned). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_South_Africa

        It is good to hear that someone like him is increasingly being sidelined.

        Thanks for pointing out the court case. After a little digging it looks like the court has ruled on this more than once. Back in 2011 they found him guilty of hate speech for the chant: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-malema/south-africa-court-finds-malema-guilty-of-hate-speech-idUSTRE78B2DD20110912/

        And in 2022 the courts ruled that the chant should not be taken literally.

        That chant when coupled with statements to his supporters such as “never be afraid to kill” is still alarming.

        It reeks of “it was just a joke, bro” energy and what fascists try to do when they are testing the waters.

        • Distractor@lemm.ee
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          16 days ago

          As I said, the song was a really big deal when it happened, there was a massive outcry. I believe the incident took place in 2013, the year Malema founded his party. His platform absolutely runs on hatred of white people, and this was a way for him to gain political relevance.

          The objections to Malema singing the song went through the courts, as they should, and Malema had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Appeal. (The final judgement is from 2024.) I would assume that he sang it again after that but honestly try to ignore him as much as possible.

          However, there was no point in Trump showing videos of Malema to the South African delegation. They had nothing to do with it. In fact, the ANC promised in 2012 never to sing that protest song again (it was originally one of their protest songs).

          More importantly, this video is not evidence of a white genocide, past, present, or planned.

          Edit to add: The reality is that there is a notable segment of the population that is angry. The economy is bad, unemployment is crazy high, electricity is insufficient (load shedding is a disaster), violent crime remains high, etc. It’s easier for them to keep blaming white people than acknowledge that it’s been 30 years of black rule now. Malema is a symptom of these issues. A meaningful discussion around this topic would have been valuable, but that’s not what Trump did.

        • parpol@programming.dev
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          16 days ago

          So far only one of them appeared to be from congo. What about the rest? Are we going to throw it all out because one was from Congo, and because a memorial mistaken for a burial site (literally makes no difference)

              • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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                16 days ago

                Im asking you which you’re talking about. Everyone else already knows the answer.

                • parpol@programming.dev
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                  16 days ago

                  “The evidence of supposed mass killings of white South Africans presented by Donald Trump in a tense White House meeting on Wednesday were in some cases images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while footage shown during the meeting was falsely portrayed as depicting “burial sites”.”

                  “In some cases” means less than a majorty of the cases. We’re talking about the rest. Do you and “everyone else” know something about these other ones we don’t?

  • Grizzlyboy@lemm.ee
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    16 days ago

    If there’s a continent where white genocide is justified, Africa sure is a front runner!