CNN’s Dana Bash Breaks In on Trump Mid-Rant To Defend NBC Reporter, Fact-Check Trump
CNN anchor Dana Bash cut in on President Donald Trump in mid-rant to defend NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander and fact-check the president on false claims of White genocide.
A bilateral meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa quickly descended into chaos Wednesday as Trump attacked Alexander for asking about the Afrikaner refugee policy — and then it got really uncomfortable.
Trump had the lights dimmed so he could force Ramaphosa to watch a White genocide propaganda video, then bitterly argued with him about it.
On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, Bash interrupted the meeting to defend Alexander as a “terrific reporter” asking “important questions,” and to ask correspondent Daniel Dale to lay out the facts about Trump’s claims.
Dale didn’t get far before Bash went back to the meeting, which was about to heat up:
TRUMP: I don’t know. Look, these are articles over the last few days, death of people. Death, death, death, horrible death, deaths — I don’t know, pick anyone. White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and racist laws. And this is all, OK, I mean, I’ll give these to you.
BASH: We’re going to now go to Daniel Dale because there is a lot to unpack here. Daniel, I know you want to talk about this and I want you to talk about this. I just want to say one thing beforehand. Peter Alexander is a terrific reporter, and he is not just there for NBC News. He is there representing the pool, the television network pool, and he asked important questions that all of us want answered.
Daniel, that is on the Qatari jet, which we’ll get to in a bit. Let’s just start with what we believe is happening there. I mean, you see the president holding up what he says is evidence of what he claims is genocide. As David Chalian said, and I want you to add to this, those are unsubstantiated claims. What he did by bringing a video into the Oval Office, televisions just aren’t hanging out in the Oval Office. This was a very scripted, strategic move.
And what they played looked like some kind of video, which you could hear the president saying, this is proof of — President Trump saying this is proof of genocide. And the South African president was kind of forced to figure out how to play it on the fly. And I believe I heard him saying something like, we’ll look into it. Daniel?
DANIEL DALE: Yeah, that’s right. So let’s look at what the facts actually show. The facts show that South Africa is a country with a very high number of violent crimes. But the facts also show, Dana, that a tiny number of those violent crimes are committed against white farmers. So, official data in South Africa, which is matched by data from advocacy groups, shows that in the last nine months of last year, 2024, there were about 20,000 murders in the country of South Africa. Again, a terribly high number. How many of those murders were committed on farms? 36.
BASH: Daniel, stand by. I want to hear the South African President speaking now.
Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.
