Bulwark Takes - EXCLUSIVE: Disgusting Posts From Trump South Africa Refugee

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

JVL and Will Sommer deep dive into the social media accounts of one of the South African refugees who recently arrived in the US, uncovering far-right views that raise questions about the Trump administration’s hypocritical vetting process. Read More, An Afrikaner Refugee Has Thoughts About the Jews

Hello, everyone. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Will Sommer. And man, oh man, are you about to take a journey. Will, a couple of days ago, the State Department sent a plane, a government plane to South Africa to bring 59 refugees here seeking asylum for persecution in South Africa. They also sent a deputy secretary of state to Dulles Airport to receive them, warmly hold a press conference and talk about how great these people were. Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country. So the president on February 7th issued an executive order about the egregious conditions in South Africa. And all of these folks who have just come in today have been carefully vetted

pursuant to our refugee standards. But again, the president has recognized the dire situation of this particular group of people. And again, they went through the process. And I remember when this happened, I thought to myself, I wonder if any of these guys have any problematic social media history, since that's a thing we evidently do about refugees and immigrants now and it turns out ding ding ding we sure do tell the people what

you found yeah sure so this concerns one of the africana refugees a car Kleinhaus, who, you know. Sounds like he should be a character from Die Hard. Sounds like one of Alan Rickman's crew, right? Carl. Carl. That is exactly what I was thinking. And so, you know, this is, you can see this guy at the press event. He's hanging out. He's one of the guys supposedly fleeing the white genocide in South Africa. But on his Twitter account, Carl has made some, you know, some not so flattering statements about Jews, about Israel.

He said Jews are naturally untrustworthy. He posted a couple videos of sort of Jews and Christians clashing in Israel, sort of with the implication that this is kind of this Jewish oppression of Christians. And, you know, normally, you know, you're welcome to kind of believe a lot of things in this country. But the new Trump administration standard is that if you have anti-Semitic or anti-Israel statements, and you're trying to immigrate here in the past, at least, or at least for maybe people of a browner complexion, this has been a real issue. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to dig into all this in a minute. And at the end, please do stay with us because I'm going to mount a defense of

Mr. Kleinhaus, because I think it is important to say this isn't about him. Like this is, you know, if you are open to immigration, then you are open to all sorts of people coming to your country. And many of them are going to have views you disagree with. And if you if you buy into immigration, like that's part of the deal. Right. And and people who are immigrants have First Amendment protections, even if they are not citizens. And we'll talk about all that in the back half, because what this is really about is about America. So you and I went crawling through Mr. Kleinhaus's social media feed, and it was kind of funny to me how much it looked like a generic MAGA feed. I mean, there's some stuff about South Africa in it. I would say it's about like a third to 40% maybe South Africa content. But most of it is just like Trump humping and Trump memes, a lot of Tesla worship.

He's very worked up about vandalism of Teslas. This seems to be one of his top of mind concerns. Lots of memes, lots of Pam Bondi retweets, talking about arrest numbers in Virginia of immigrants. Again, this guy is more in the weeds on American politics than I got to say, like 60% of American voters. Did that surprise you at all? Yeah, I mean, it is interesting. I mean, on one hand, I do think he will fit in very well here in the United States for better or for worse. I mean, he seems very conversant in our culture war issues. Even when it was about

South Africa, it would be like an AI picture of Trump playing for the South African rugby team or something like that. For the Springboks or something, yeah. And so, I mean, he's very, I mean, he was posting, oh, you know, I'm so mad about trans issues, stuff like that. So that was interesting.

It's just sort of an interesting thing that he's so riled up and ready to slide into America, I guess. And so you can see why he would sort of jump this opportunity to immigrate here. On the other hand, I mean, he does have these things that that, you know, at least for other people, have proved to be issues that either get you barred from entry to America, or even deported. Yeah. So he just finished filling out the picture for people among his his tweets. He seems to be he likes UFC, likes ultimate fighting.

It seems like he loves slap fighting. I don't know if you saw he attended some slap fights, which are kind of an off branch of UFC. I mean, that is gruesome stuff. He is vaccine skeptical. Apparently, he's very Christian. A lot of Bible verses, a lot of have you accepted Jesus, which, you know, I got to say, big fan. Big fan of that stuff.

I love Jesus. Who doesn't? And that's when you then get into some of the stuff with the Jews. It's kind of something. I wouldn't say it seems like an obsession of his, but it's clearly something that's on his mind. And it fits with that sort of persecution complex, right? Like Christians are the ones being persecuted. And it's all these other groups are out to get the Christians. It's, you know, there's one these other groups who have to get the Christians.

It's, you know, there's one retweet about things to know about these religions. One of them is not like the other. And it's like Christians, Muslims and Jews. It's the Jews who he's like, huh? Yeah, he said, or this thing he retweeted said, you know, Jews believe Jesus is boiling an excrement in hell. And so you have this over and over. He seemed to get very exercised about the treatment of Christians in Jerusalem. And even on October 7th, when the reports were just coming out about the attack, he said, you know, well, here's this video of the Jews spitting on Christians in Jerusalem. And interestingly, another one of his preoccupations seems to be with Europe and with the terrible crimes being committed by North Africans, which is always code for Muslims. And so there's again, like there's a little bit of Janice, two faces to this. So here's what's the reason this caught our attention. And again, you know,

a group of 59 people, you take a random sampling of any 59 people, you're going to find somebody in there who's got a bunch of views that are crazy. But the State Department has been in process of actively going and revoking immigration status for, say, graduate students who have authored a single op-ed in the school paper that they viewed as anti-Semitic, even though not anti-Semitic, not having anything to do with that, but taking like real strict calipers on ideology to go after people and arrest them and throw them in jail and try to deport them. And the cover the administration has been using for this is it's anti-Semitism. Very, very concerned about anti-Semitism. This seems to be like a moment where the mask kind of slips a little bit and suggests, well,

I mean, not all anti-Semites, you know, I mean, there are certain sub brands which are OK. I if you get what I'm what I'm putting down, right? I mean, that's yeah, I mean, I think the implication here, what we can draw from this is that as If you get what I'm putting down, right? Yeah, I mean, I think the implication here, what we can draw from this is, as you said, I mean, it's not that this guy even himself isn't necessarily evil or that this whole group is. But that the administration, I think, has been much more willing to say, you know, if someone is of a brown skin or perhaps Muslim, to say, you know, well, what can we possibly do to disqualify you, to deport you if you're already in the U.S.? But in this guy's case, I mean, he has comments that I think, if these were made by a Muslim applicant to immigrate here, would absolutely be disqualifying. I mean, DHS has said that they are vetting even what may be totally legal statements to make. But if they're anti-Semitic or critical of Israel, that'll keep you out. I mean, in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, we know Marco Rubio had to file

the document in court saying, look, yeah, I mean, his associations are probably legal, but because they are critical of Israel and anti-Semitic in our view, that goes against U.S. foreign policy. And I'm allowed to deport him based just on that. And certainly that is not the standard being applied in this case. No. And here's where I do want to have a like a serious because it's not really funny. It's all just sort of darkly funny. There's a gallows humor aspect to this. But I do want to be serious for a minute because the guy is making an asylum claim saying that there is a white genocide going on in South Africa and that his life is in danger. And I don't know. I don't know anything about South Africa other than what I read in the paper.

I'm willing to accept that as being possible. And if he's making an asylum claim and the U.S. government is willing to hear that, I'm totally willing to hear that, too. I think that's that's fine. We have a system to adjudicate these things for. And so it isn't the case that like, well, you know, throw this guy out. But it is that, again, I just the Trump administration doesn't quite get immigration or they do. But the mask is slipping. And what they really want is white power.

Because this is the thing about immigration. As I said at the beginning, if you're open to immigration, then you're open to all sorts of people. People with different religions, people with different views, people with different skin colors, people with different jobs, and outlooks on family life and all that. you got to be okay with that and if you're not then you're doing something that's a little closer to like a eugenics project and that i think is creepy as hell and i i just think the answer here should be like you keep all these people like Like the answer isn't to take Mr. Klein house and ship him back. The answer is like, yeah,

we respect first amendment rights for everyone. And we adjudicate fairly and completely claims of asylum for everyone. And we just accept that that's going to mean that some people are going to come into the country who aren't your cup of tea, no matter who you are. Right. If you're no matter how liberal you are, conservative you are, like there's going to be some people who come in who aren't your cup of tea. And you live with that because that is literally the definition of America. I don't get the sense Marco Rubio is quite down with that anymore. I think that's right. I mean, they're selecting for a group that is majority Christian, certainly all white, and also right wing. I mean, if you're

a group that, you know, white group, white people who say, Oh, I can't fit in in South Africa, I think that you're more likely to be right wing. And, and, and that meanwhile, you know, we're, they're putting up all these bars for for groups that I think are more likely to be left wing or Muslim or, you know, non-white. And, you know, that's as you said, I mean, that's not what immigration is supposed to be about. Yeah. And I got to say that the thing that really grinds my gears and that that's even too flippant way to put it.

The thing which I think is a deep moral stain on America is going out of your way to pull in people from South Africa who may or may not have valid asylum claims, while at the same time trying to actively get rid of Afghanis who put their lives on the line in an attempt to help America in America's wars of choice in Afghanistan. And that that takes me to a place of like real anger, you know, you know, like it shouldn't be either, or you should be able to help all the people, but,

but you damn sure should help the people who put their lives on the line for America out of, out of the goodness of their hearts. And as volunteers first, I don't know, does that, does that grind you or do you have like, no,

no, I completely agree. I mean, I mean, this is where the State Department made that comment that these people were being welcomed because they're better at assimilation than the Afghans. I mean, in the case of this gentleman we're talking about here, this is a guy who owns multiple mining companies. He has pictures with top South African politicians. So, I mean, it doesn't seem like this is a guy who was like, I have to flee South Africa at risk of my life, certainly in comparison to people from Afghanistan. Yeah.

And that really gets right down to it, right? When that mope from the State Department was asked by the, I think it was the BBC World Service reporter, you know, why asylum claims, why refugee status for these people, but not people from Venezuela and not people from Afghanistan? He said very clearly, because, you know, they'll be able to assimilate easily. Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country. You know, and I just think what a repugnant human being that asshole is. White nationalism for the win. Good luck, America.