Donald Trump on Friday doubled down on his claim that white South Africans the administration is identifying as refugees are victims of a genocide, while blasting the reporter who asked him about the message it sends to predominantly Black asylum seekers denied entry to the U.S.
“Well, I think if I see people in distress, I don’t care what color, what they look like, what anything– their size, their height, their eyes. I don’t care,” he said while traveling aboard Air Force One. “But they happen to be white. And if they were Black, I’d do the exact same thing. And we treat people very well when we see there’s a genocide going on.”
The president said Monday he had fast-tracked the South African refugees because “they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people be killed.”
He insisted, “It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about, but it’s a terrible thing that’s taking place.”
Trump and South African native Elon Musk have been using claims of genocide to justify taking in the Afrikaners as refugees while turning away other groups. Reports show Musk’s AI bot Grok has also been pushing that narrative, though there’s no evidence to support it.
There’s no debating whether genocide is taking place in another African country. In January, just before Trump returned to power, the U.S. State Department concluded that Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forces committed genocide in Darfur during the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
Human Rights Watch has documented targeted ethnic killings, systematic rape and sexual violence by the RSF in West Darfur and called for further investigation into evidence that the RSF intends to commit genocide.
Trump appeared to equivocate Friday when pressed whether a genocide was actually happening in South Africa.
“So if it’s a genocide, that’s terrible,” he said. “And I happen to believe it could very well be. South Africa’s out of control, and it’s been out of control for a long time, and the media doesn’t report it.”
“And I’m not looking for reporting because, believe me, it’s easier for me not to do anything,” he continued. “It’s a lot easier because I don’t get nasty questions like that.”
On social media, many questioned Trump’s true intentions when it comes to the South African refugees.
“Absolutely disgraceful,” wrote one critic on X. “Donald Trump peddles the false ‘white genocide’ myth in South Africa to stoke racial fear and score points with white nationalists. There is no genocide—just his shameless exploitation to turn every issue into a grievance for white identity politics.”
Another critic of the policy called it “a dishonest attempt to discredit South Africa.”
“The world knows it’s a lie,” he said. “They are not being persecuted. In fact, they enjoy a much higher standard of living than their majority Black counterparts.”
Whites still own three-quarters of private land and have about 20 times the wealth of the Black majority, according to international academic journal, the Review of Political Economy.
So far 59 white Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch settlers living in South Africa, have migrated to the U.S., with more expected to follow suit. Minnesota, Idaho, and Alabama are among the states taking in the migrants, who skipped over about 12,000 already approved refugees from other global hot spots.
