A fiery exchange erupted in the White House press briefing room Thursday when NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor pressed Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt over a video shown by President Donald Trump during his Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. At the center of the controversy: a video Trump claimed depicted more than 1,000 burial sites of white farmers allegedly murdered in racially motivated attacks.
What followed was a pointed, often tense back-and-forth that illuminated not just divisions over the video's content, but a deeper battle over media credibility, international human rights, and presidential judgment.
.@PressSec nukes Fake News @Yamiche for LYING about the burial ground of white farmers killed in South Africa pic.twitter.com/BhCTGumnoz
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025
Alcindor didn’t mince words. She repeatedly described the video as “unsubstantiated,” accusing Trump of presenting misleading imagery that could inflame racial tensions and misrepresent South Africa’s complex land and crime issues. She pressed for clarity: who at the White House vetted the material before it was presented to a foreign leader?
But Leavitt, far from dodging, went on the offensive. “What’s not true, Yamiche?” she challenged, cutting into Alcindor’s question before mounting a defense rooted in what she said was factual validation. “It did show that,” Leavitt insisted. “It showed white crosses representing people who have perished because of racial persecution.”
FYI: @Yamiche — this is from the @AP pic.twitter.com/UfzMhbUuDK
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 22, 2025
The verbal sparring escalated as Alcindor insisted the video’s framing was misleading, while Leavitt countered that even The Associated Press had documented the same monument—the White Cross Monument in Ysterberg, South Africa. Leavitt cited the AP’s own caption describing “crosses planted at the White Cross Monument, each one marking a white farmer who has been killed in a farm murder.”
“Take it up with them if you believe the claim is unsubstantiated,” she said pointedly.
The issue of white South African farm murders has been politically and racially sensitive for years. Critics argue that the violence is part of South Africa’s broader crime problem and not a racially targeted campaign. Others, including some in conservative circles, have pointed to the killings as evidence of systemic racial animus and government indifference. Trump’s 2018 tweet suggesting he had asked then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study the “large-scale killing of farmers” in South Africa drew international condemnation and was labeled inflammatory by the South African government.