Karoline Leavitt Rages at Reporter When Aggressively Questioned About Inaccurate Image Trump Showed

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday went off on a reporter for pointing out President Donald Trump’s false claims about violence in South Africa.

The day before, Trump showed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a video he believed supported claims of genocide in South Africa. For decades, White South African farmers have been the victims of violent attacks — but officials have made clear that the relatively small number of incidents is not a genocide.

Included in the video was footage of a roadside memorial in South Africa. The memorial, composed of more than 2,500 crosses, was erected to honor a farming couple killed in 2020. In the Oval Office, Trump falsely claimed the it was a burial site for more than 1,000 White South African farmers — each cross being the location of a body.

During Thursday’s White House briefing, NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor pointed out that fact to begin her question. Leavitt quickly took exception to the comments and the exchange quickly spiraled into a contentious back-and-forth.

ALCINDOR: The president showed a video that he said showed more than 1,000 burial sites of W hite South Africans that he said were murdered. We know that that was not true and that the video wasn’t true; so I wonder, why did the president choose to show that–

LEAVITT: What’s not true, Yamiche?

ALCINDOR: It’s not true that the video was showing a burial site. It is unsubstantiated that that’s the case–

LEAVITT: No, it is true that that video showed the crosses that represent–

ALCINDOR: It’s an actual burial site, is what the president claimed.

LEAVITT: 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–

ALCINDOR: The president claimed that it was showing burial sites.

LEAVITT: –and those crosses are representing their lives. Those crosses are representing their lives and the fact that they are now dead, and their government did nothing about it. Are you disputing that?

ALCINDOR: I’m disputing the fact that the video showed what the president claimed it showed, because it did not show that; but even more, what I’m asking you is who at the White House–

LEAVITT: It did show that. It showed white crosses representing people who have perished because of racial persecution.

ALCINDOR: Who at the White House verifies the videos that the president shows, and what protocols are in place when there’s unsubstantiated information being put out for the world and world leaders to show?

LEAVITT: 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 of all places 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.”–

ALCINDOR: The president said that it was a burial site.

LEAVITT: –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, the Associated Press. So you should take it up with them if you believe the claim is unsubstantiated, and that’s a ridiculous line of questioning.

In a report from BBC, 46-year-old Rob Hoatson explained that he made site after Glen and Vida Rafferty — his neighbors — were murdered in 2020. Hoatson did not explicitly state that each cross represented a slain farmer. Hoatson intended for the memorial to be temporary and it was removed sometime later.

Data obtained by Reuters also contradicted Leavitt’s suggested symbolism of the crosses. Since 1990, the Afrikaner farmers’ union TLU-SA documented the murders of 1,363 White farmers since 1990 — a little over half the amount of crosses placed near the Rafferty family’s farm.

Watch above via Fox News