Trump's Trials - Trump shows South Africa's Ramaphosa a video montage in tense Oval Office meeting

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

President Trump meets in the Oval Office with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Bilateral relations are at their lowest since the end of apartheid.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and this is Trump's terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back strength to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode we bring you one of NPR's latest stories about the 47th president and how he is trying to remake the federal government. Today's story starts right after this.

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Hello. Do you have a restroom we could use? A very simple free market solution is that we could just pay to use a bathroom, but we can't. On the Planet Money podcast, the story of how we once had thousands of pay toilets and why they got banned from Planet Money on NPR, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was in the Oval Office today trying, he said, to reset the relationship between the two countries. But President Trump had other plans. As the two leaders began to answer questions from reporters, Trump

did something unusual. Turn the lights down. Turn the lights down and just put this on. It's right behind you. Johan. There's nothing this parliament can do with or without you. People are going to... He showed a five-minute video montage to his guests. NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Leisson joins me now from the White House to explain. Hi Mara. Hi there. So explain. What was this video?

Well, this was a planned moment and the video showed leaders of a minority party in South Africa singing an apartheid era struggle song called Kill the Boar, that's B-O-E-R, which means farmer or Afrikaner. And that is something that Ramaphosa says, it says his rhetoric he rejects and always has. Whites who account for about 7% of the population

in South Africa still own about 70% of commercial farmland. And while South Africa does suffer from high crime rates, black people bear the brunt of violent crime in the country. But Trump has claimed for years without evidence that South Africa has allowed what he calls a genocide of white South African farmers. And so he showed him this montage that he said proved his point. But you do allow them to take land.

No, no, no, no. You do allow them to take land. Nobody can take the land. And then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them. No, there is quite... Nothing happens. So you can hear Ramaphosa there saying, no, no, no, no, no, pushing back.

Tell me more about his reaction. Well, he came prepared for what clearly had the potential to be an explosive meeting. It's as if the South African delegation went to school on the Zelensky meeting. Of course, that meeting that they argued on camera, the meeting ended abruptly. But Ramaphosa was prepared for an ambush. He was very calm throughout. He didn't try to argue with the president, and he brought with him some friends, some powerful white friends, to help him try to convince Trump.

I would say if there was a Frikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture. He would not be with me. So it'll take him, President Trump, listening to their stories, to their perspective. Okay, hang on, Mara. Who are these three gentlemen he's referring to? There was his white minister of agriculture who's from an opposition party who vouched for Ramaphosa.

He also brought two champion golfers from South Africa, including Trump's friend Ernie Els and a billionaire luxury good magnate, Johan Rupert, who's also a Trump friend, and their message was very simple. They said, you know what? We do have a crime problem in South Africa. We need to work with you, our great partner on this. We need tech. We need Elon Musk's Starlink. We need all sorts of other kinds of crime- crime fighting machinery like drones that can help us. Sounds like quite a day at the White House. Did they get to what Trump wants Roma posted to actually do? Well, he was asked that question directly and he said, I don't know.

And later he was asked if he was convinced that genocide was occurring in South Africa. And despite his insistence that it was, he said said quote, I haven't made up my mind. And how did all this end? I'm remembering you referred to Zelensky's Oval Office meeting when that all went off the rails. He left the West Wing, he didn't even get lunch. Did Ramaphosa? I think he got lunch.

He kept his eye on his goal, which is to get investment from the United States in South Africa, which of course would give business to US companies. And we're going to see which Trump emerges from these meetings, the expert practitioner of white identity politics, which he's been his whole career, or the dealmaker looking for trade and investment deals, or maybe both. And Piers, Mara Eliason at the White House. Thanks, Mara. You're welcome.

Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks as always to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro.

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