AFP reports:

US President Donald Trump brandished a stack of printed articles at the White House Wednesday that he claimed documented a genocide taking place against white people in South Africa.

Mixed into the deck of papers he unveiled before South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa, however, was a months-old blog post featuring a photo from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Death of people, death, death, death, horrible death, death,” Trump said as he flipped through the headlines, which he said were published in “the last few days.”

“These are all people that recently got killed.”

Trump and his allies have spread baseless claims of a “genocide” targeting white farmers in South Africa, claims that the government in Pretoria has dismissed as false.

At the bilateral meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the US president held up a February article about tribalism in Africa from a little-known website called “American Thinker.”

It featured a blown-up image showing Red Cross workers in protective gear handling body bags.

“Look, here’s burial sites all over the place,” said Trump. “These are all white farmers that are being buried.” [Continue reading…]

The American Thinker article Trump held up was this one, which used a screenshot derived from this report by Reuters, “As Goma ceasefire largely holds, Congo rushes to bury bodies from rebel offensive,” published on February 4.

Rolling Stone reports:

After Ramaphosa suggested Trump actually listen to the perspective of South Africans, Trump had the lights of the Oval Office dimmed and played footage of members of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party singing the controversial anti-Apartheid song “Kill the Boer.” The presentation also included social media footage of white crucifixes lining a highway in South Africa purporting to represent murdered white farmers.

“I would like to know where this is because this I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa said.

“It’s in South Africa,” Trump replied, without stating a specific location.

Ramaphosa also attempted to explain that while the EFF’s songs were a point of controversy even within South Africa, and he personally disagreed with the content, the party had constitutional protections and free speech rights preventing the government from shutting them down.

Never one to ignore the Oval Office press gaggle, the president repeatedly complained that the “fake news” media refused to report on the alleged race-based killings and instead was criticizing him for accepting a $400 million airplane from the government of Qatar. The Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday that it had accepted the plane.

“I wish I had a plane to give you,” a seemingly exasperated Ramaphosa said at one point.

“I wish you did. I would take it,” Trump responded. “If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”