White House Defends Pushing 'Unsubstantiated' Video to Support South African 'Genocide' Claims

The White House defended the use of a misleading video in order to support claims that white South Africans are being oppressed and murdered within the country.

The video was presented by President Donald Trump to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting at the White House Wednesday. Leavitt was asked about the video by NBC News' Yamiche Alcindor during a press briefing the day following.

"The president played a video that he said showed more than 1,000 burial sites of white South Africans that he said was murdered. We know that's not true. Why did he show it?" asked Alcindor.

"What's not true, Yamiche?" Leavitt asked.

"It's not true that the video was showing a burial site. It is unsubstantiated," Alcindor continued.

"The video showed images of crosses in South Africa about white farmers who have been killed and politically persecuted because of the color of their skin. Those crosses are representing their lives and the fact that they are now dead, and their government did nothing about it. It showed white crosses representing people who have perished because of racial persecution," Leavitt said.

"What protocols are put in place when there's unsubstantiated information being put out [from the White House] for the world and world leaders to know?" Alcindor asked.

"Yamiche, what's unsubstantiated about the video? The video shows crosses that represent the dead bodies of people who were racially persecuted by their government. In fact, the Associated Press has a picture of that very monument, and the caption from the Associated Press is 'each [cross] marks a white farmer who has been killed in a farm murder.' So it is substantiated, not just by that video, and the physical evidence that everybody saw on display in the Oval Office, but also by another outlet in this room," replied Leavitt.

The photo Leavitt refers to exhibits the White Cross Monument near Polokwane in South Africa, which represents both Black and white murdered farmworkers. Furthermore, the crosses in the video Trump displayed were part of a 2020 demonstration following the murder of a white couple on their farm. The video resurfaced recently.