Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Peter Doocy Says Trump’s Meeting With South African President Was ‘Most Awkward’ WH Event Since Zelenskyy’s Visit

[Screenshot/Fox News]

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy said President Donald Trump’s meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the “most awkward” Oval Office event since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit.

Trump welcomed Ramaphosa to the Oval Office where he played a video of the alleged genocide happening in his country, which Doocy said was aired to “call the visiting South African president’s bluff.” Ramaphosa maintained during the meeting that there is “no genocide” in South Africa, leading the two leaders to openly disagree with each other in front of the press.

“President Trump called for the lights to be dimmed so that he could show this multimedia presentation to basically call the visiting South African president’s bluff,” Doocy, who was at the event, said. “The South African president came here to say ‘there is no genocide happening in South Africa.’ President Trump basically said, ‘ok, then what’s all of this?’ And he  showed political leaders and opposition leaders in South Africa saying some pretty heinous and violent things for several minutes and he just made South African president and the rest of the South African delegation sit there in the half-dark room and watch it.”

WATCH:

Doocy also noted that Trump’s “foreign policy doctrine” is one where he is brutally honest with leaders rather than showing politeness.

“It is worth pointing out, that is one of the most awkward Oval Office meetings since Zelenskyy was here,” Doocy continued. “It ended a little bit better, because I can see the vehicle, the South African delegation is not leaving early. They will be sticking around for lunch. But really, when you watch that, it seems like the Trump foreign policy doctrine is a lot like the old slogan for the MTV show ‘The Real World,’ where ‘people stop being polite and start getting real.’ And that’s what we just saw from President Trump.”

The video aired in the Oval Office showed people talking about shooting and “cutting the throat[s]” of white people and groups of people chanting “kill the Boer, kill the farmer.” In response to the video, Ramaphosa said that statements made are not “government policy” and added that South Africa has a “multi-party democracy” which “allows people to express themselves.”

South Africa’s Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said the utterances made in the video were made by opposition leaders and that his party is working to keep them out of power. Trump argued that the government allows the opposition to “take land” and “kill the white farmer” without any consequences, which Ramaphosa denied.

Ramaphosa’s visit proved to be the most tense Oval Office meeting since Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s heated clash with Zelenskyy on Feb. 28 as he accused the U.S. of not having stopped Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the incident, the White House canceled its scheduled joint press conference and asked the Ukrainian president to leave the premises.