During a State Department press briefing, spokesperson Tammy Bruce was asked about President Trump's Oval Office meeting with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa.
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00:00Thank you very much a couple of questions about South Africa and.
00:04On South Africa, the state department is empowered legally with deciding when a genocide exists.
00:14Has there been an investigation that supports any such contention? Because there is no credible evidence from any authority on the ground there in their government in NGOs.
00:27Or elsewhere that we can find to support an allegation of genocide that white farmers are at all as disadvantaged as the crime wave there that is a problem for against blacks in much greater numbers and proportionally even greater numbers than than whites.
00:49The fact checkers have shown that the white crosses were put up as a protest against the criminal movement and against the death of the farmers.
00:59The crosses and the burial were all part of a protest against the criminality, not as described.
01:06So what information was given to the White House, if any, by the State Department, by the experts in the field to support what was described as an ambush widely around the world of a South African visitor who had a celebrated background as a leader of a biracial government and someone who was jailed with Mandela.
01:31And who has been one of the civic leaders of a new South Africa as troubled as troubled as their history has been and as troubled as their current situation.
01:38Well, I would say that as we all knew, of course, the president has been very vocal about his concern about the violence, the nature of what's been transpiring in South Africa.
01:46The president did not come to the United States of America unaware of the position and posture of the position and the posture of the president and of the secretary of state and of his administration.
02:02So I would argue against very much that there was some kind of an ambush.
02:08South Africa also has been facing a dynamic where there's been regular criticism ranging from not just the collapse in some ways when it comes to the violence in civil society,
02:19but then the referral of Israel with the ICJ for the issues of genocide while ignoring Hamas, cozying up to Iran, the general choices that they've made in the meantime also of passing a law that has allowed them to take property to possess property of white Afrikaner farmers with with no reason.
02:42One element is equity. And so when you're you're doing when you're passing laws like that, that target a group ostensibly sending a message to the population that these people are have a price to pay.
02:57There's something that they need to be doing that there that they deserve to have their land taken combined with the chance of kill the boar, the massive rallies where encouragement of violence is prevalent and is at the core of it.
03:11In addition to the association, South Africa and its president have chosen to make like with Iran and their actions against Israel.
03:20It it it creates a picture that is worthwhile having a conversation in the Oval Office.
03:25And that is, I think I it is the transparency of the president.
03:29Certainly both leaders aware of what the concerns have been and what the arguments have been.
03:35So I don't think President Ramposa was somehow surprised or shocked at the fact that we have an honest man who's in the White House who's spoken and continued to speak about violence and the trajectory of South Africa.
03:50Well, what I'm just suggesting is that the facts matter with the credibility of the president.
03:55And that the as it was explained in the Oval Office and it has been explained elsewhere, that is a minority party, a protest party that is legally permissible.
04:07But that the white agricultural minister said in the Oval Office, that's why we joined the coalition to make sure that they didn't get into the parliament, that they don't have power.
04:17They've been, you know, they've been in the nature of the weeds of something like that, where that individual.
04:24You saw also the larger video of the thousands and thousands of individuals in a stadium framework.
04:31And I think that what Americans in the world and what South African see is a movement and an attitude that is not only not punished, but reinforced, but Andrea reinforced with a law that says, oh, those people that you're calling to have be killed.
04:46Yeah, let's take their land. Who does that? Who does that in the midst of that environment?
04:53And I think that when we think about I'm not certainly going to get ahead of the president.
04:57President Trump is someone that the world knows, says what he thinks and acts on what he thinks.
05:02But I think that it was very clear, and he's been clear, as has the secretary, about the problems with South Africa, the nature of the signals that it sends, the quality or lack thereof of life, the fact that we have taken in refugees, very basic standard of looking for asylum.
05:21They've met that standard. And it's more than just complaining.
05:25It is about acting and finding an element that where we can make a difference for those people.
05:29Taking of the land, first of all, it's with judicial review when it has happened.
05:34It's it's it's not it's not let me but let me correct you right there, Andrea, and then I'm going to move on.
05:39This particular law they they tout has not even been implemented yet.
05:43That's correct. This is but so it's not about judicial review.
05:47The law if you have a judicial review of a law that says there is no standard.
05:51Well, then you'll have judicial review of no standard.
05:53They have not. All right. But but this and it is in part, I would argue, because of the global attention that has been placed on them because of President Donald Trump's attitude, his comments and bringing attention to that framework in general.
06:08That is why that hasn't been acted on. And I will move on.
06:13No, but I think I've been clear. Yes, Matt, I think you have probably something to say.
06:17I mean, let me just. Yeah, Andrea, for you, for questions, I've answered them.
06:20You've asked in depth. We are going to move on. Yes, sir.
06:23I'm sure others might might have the same sort of question.