Misinformation channels to the Oval Office

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 25 May 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

President Trump's spreading of the false claim that South Africa is perpetrating a genocide against its white inhabitants is just the latest example of misinformation making its way from corners of the internet into presidential statements or even policy.

This isn't the first time that a falsehood that began on the fringes of the right-wing made its way to the Trump White House. NPR's Scott Detrow and Lisa Hagen examine how these beliefs have been able to reach the Oval Office.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	News outlets have been calling it an ambush.
0:02.3	And, excuse me, turn the lights down.
0:05.4	Turn the lights down.
0:06.9	And just put this on.
0:08.1	It's right behind you.
0:10.1	Johan.
0:11.5	The White House this past week, an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that began cordially, took a turn when Trump started to play a video,
0:22.9	which showed a row of hundreds of white crosses along a country road.
0:26.4	These are burial sites right here.
0:30.4	Burial sites.
0:32.5	Over a thousand of white farmers.
0:36.9	Trump told the South African president,
0:38.7	every cross was the burial site of a murdered white farmer in his country.
0:43.5	This was not true.
0:45.2	The footage was from a demonstration following the deaths of two people killed on their farm.
0:49.5	Their killers were convicted and sentenced.
0:52.2	But the truth has not stopped President Trump from trying to bolster the false claim
0:56.5	that there was a genocide happening against white farmers in South Africa.
1:01.0	When you do allow them to take land.
1:04.3	No, no, no, no.
1:04.9	They do allow them to take land.
1:06.5	Nobody can take land.
	...

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