MAY 22, 2025
A CNN panel devolved into chaos Wednesday night during a heated debate over President Donald Trump’s bizarre Oval Office confrontation with South Africa’s president.
Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa met at the White House in a highly charged encounter that was meant to reset and strengthen bilateral relations. The friendly gathering quickly turned confrontational however, as Trump pressed Ramaphosa with dubious claims of a “white genocide” occurring in South Africa targeting white farmers.
Trump said white South Africans were “fleeing because of the violence and the racist laws,” adding: “This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What’s happening now is never reported. Nobody knows about it.”
The jaw-dropping remarks became the topic of discussion on CNN’s “NewsNight,” with host Abby Phillip flatly calling out the president.
“The evidence that Trump is showing there with the press in the room has been debunked. There is nothing substantive to these claims that there is a genocide happening in South Africa,” she said, later calling Trump’s rant “straight out of the conspiracy land of the far right.”
“And it is not based in fact. And it’s amazing that this has actually become the foreign policy of the United States based on just straight up I mean, we have the numbers. It is completely unsubstantiated,” Phillip said later in the segment.
But CNN conservative Scott Jennings questioned the host’s fact-check, pressing her on whether “some white farmers have been murdered.”
“No, it’s not true that there is a genocide against white farmers,” Phillip replied.
The two entered into a heated back and forth, as Jennings demanded to know whether violence has been committed against white farmers and Phillip responding that no one knows how many have been killed, because “those numbers don’t exist broken down by race.”
“I know this, I wouldn’t trust the South African government to tell me, I know that,” Jennings shot back. When asked how many Black farmers have been killed, Jennings fired back, “Look, you guys are so triggered over 59 people after we let in 20 million people in the country. I don’t know why you’re so triggered over it.”
As Phillip cited statistics on murders in South Africa — noting just seven farmers were slain out of nearly 20,000 murders from April 2024 through December 2024, and farm employees tend to be Black — Jennings replied his concern is there are “white farmers who have had violence committed against them, and they’re being threatened. They’re being threatened every single day.”
“You’re triggered about 59 people,” Jennings insisted.
Phillip refused to let him continue, demanding to know, “Why are you only concerned about white people?”
“I’m only concerned about this story because these 59 people asked for status, they’re getting status, and now everybody is freaking out,” Jennings replied.
“They didn’t ask for anything, actually,” Phillip shot back.
Shortly thereafter, Jennings got a schooling from Elise Labott, an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, who told Jennings there “is no evidence that white people have been targeted.”
“Some white people in the larger issue of farmers — in the larger issue of violence — have been part of this violence,” she conceded.
The panel devolved into shouting as Jennings demanded to know, “then why are they trying to leave?” — a premise she refuted.
Courtesy/Source: Raw Story
