An image Donald Trump held up in the Oval Office on Wednesday as evidence of violence against white South African farmers actually showed people in an entirely different country.
In a wild Oval Office meeting, Trump confronted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa with a printed image that he claimed showed “burial sites all over the place” in South Africa and “white farmers that are being buried.”
But according to multiple fact checks, the image comes from a Reuters news agency clip filmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The president has been accusing South Africa’s Black-led government of being anti-white, and has long entertained an unfounded narrative that a “white genocide” is being committed against South African farmers.
That wasn’t the only questionable material Trump served up during the tense meeting. According to the liberal Meidas News network, another piece of paper Trump held up showed a post that came from a fringe South African Facebook account that promotes white nationalist rhetoric and flat Earth conspiracy theories.
The Daily Beast has not independently verified that claim. The White House did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Ramaphosa‘s White House visit was widely viewed as an attempt to improve relations with the U.S., amid ongoing criticism of the country from Trump and the expulsion of the South African ambassador to the U.S. in March.
“Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates” Trump, Secretary of State Rubio claimed in a post on X in March, declaring the diplomat “no longer welcome in our great country.”
During Wednesday’s meeting, Trump also had his South African counterpart sit through a video that he said at one point showed the burial grounds of white farmers.
That was also misidentified by Trump, according to CNN, and actually showed symbolic crosses as part of a demonstration representing farmers who had been killed.
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