The White House pushed back against statements from a reporter challenging statements from the Trump administration regarding the treatment of White South African farmers — after President Donald Trump showed a video allegedly depicting burial sites of them at the White House on Wednesday.
While hosting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump aired a video in the Oval Office that showed white crosses that Trump said were approximately 1,000 burial sites of White Afrikaner South African farmers. Trump has claimed these farmers are being forced off of their land.
But Yamiche Alcindor with NBC News questioned White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on the credibility of the video, amid reports that the crosses were from a memorial demonstration following the murder of a White farming couple, not actual burial sites.
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Yamiche Alcindor with NBC News questioned White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on a video President Donald Trump aired yesterday at the White House regarding the treatment of White, South African farmers. (William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)
“We know that that was not true and that the video wasn’t true,” Alcindor said during the White House press briefing on Thursday.
Leavitt and Alcindor sparred and talked over one another, with Alcindor asking “what protocols are in place when there’s unsubstantiated information being put out for the world and world leaders?”
Leavitt then stepped in and ended the exchange, claiming the video was not unsubstantiated.
“What’s unsubstantiated about the video?” Leavitt said. “The video shows crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government. In fact, the Associated Press, of all places, has a picture of that very monument in the caption from the Associated Press is ‘Each cross marks a white farmer who has been killed in a farm murder.’”
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2025. (Getty Images)
“So it is substantiated. But it’s not just by that video and the physical evidence that everybody saw on display in the Oval Office, but also by another outlet in this from the Associated Press,” Leavitt said. “So you should take it up with them if you believe the claim is unsubstantiated. And that’s a ridiculous line of questioning.”
The crosses depicted were part of a demonstration that occurred after a white, farming couple was killed in 2020, according to the Associated Press, citing local news reports from South Africa.
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US President Donald Trump, right, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump told Ramaphosa at the White House that the burial sites by the side of the road are visited by those who want to “pay respects to their family member who was killed.”
“Have they told you where that is, Mr. President? I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa said.
“I mean, it’s in South Africa, that’s where,” Trump said.
“We need to find out,” Ramaphosa said.
Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.