How Trump's sneaky sortie against Ramaphosa went down

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Bushwhacked …is the only way to describe how POTUS Donald Trump “Zelensky’ed” Cyril Ramaphosa and Team SA in the Oval Office last Wednesday.

The word goes back to the good ol’ cowboy days of the wild wild west, when bushwhacking was a common form of guerrilla warfare (and stagecoach robbery) – particularly during the American Civil War when Confederate irregulars took to the woods for cover, from where they launched well-coordinated surprise attacks on the military.

In the “land of the free, home of the brave”, the word has become synonymous with…

‘AMBUSHED!’

Which is exactly what dozens of MSM headlines are screaming right now, in perfect sync, about the ill-fated Trump-Ramaphosa rendesvouz.

However, “bushwhacked” is probably more fitting here because in the scenario we just witnessed in the White House on Wednesday…those who got ‘whacked’ in the Oval Office, in front of the whole world, are from the metaphoric ‘bush’…that is S’Africa.

And…who saw THAT move coming? I know I didn’t. But then, when you think about it…it was a shrewd, strategic, obvious move – begging to be made. I wonder whose idea it was? Trump, the showman? Vance, the writer-producer? Musk, the mad scientist? CIA spooks? A Hollywood studio executive?

Perhaps the first sign, or omen, that things may go tits up and pear-shaped at the White House meeting was the fact that Ramaphosa and Team SA…were apparently half an hour late.

If true and unexcused, NOT a good start.

Once inside the Oval Office, the meet-and-greet warm-up chinwags were cordial and pleasant enough. Trump and Ramaphosa chatted and bantered about golf – and Volodymyr Zelensky.

K.I.S.S, MR PRESIDENT (KEEP IT SIMPLE, SQUIRREL)

Personally, I did think that Cyril spoke a little too long during his intro. He forgot that Trump has the flighty, mercurial, attention span…of a five-year old. If I were directing that roadtrip, I would’ve kept that intro and everything else Cyril said short, sweet and simple (and ambiguous) as possible.

Especially if you know damn well that, coming up soon, just like Lucy Ricardo…you got some serious s’plainin’ to do.

Still, at least the conversation was polite, affable and mutually respectful, for now. There was, however, a slightly awkward moment when Ramaphosa had to turn and ask his team how to pronounce “respirators”. Which was kinda ironic…and foreboding…given that just a few minutes later Cyril would be looking like he desperately needed one.

Because, eventually…that big, white, Afrikaner elephant in the room…was going to make itself heard.

DON’T TAKE THE BAIT, CYRIL! (DAMN, HE DID)

The implosion fuse was lit by a (South African) reporter who asked Trump: “What will it take for you to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa?”

Now, all Ramaphosa has to do here…is keep his mouth shut and let Trump answer that difficult, thorny, controversial, explosive, unanswerable question.

Instead, before Trump could respond, Ramaphosa intercepted. “Well, I can answer that for the president,” he said.

Eish…

There’s another reason why that was not a good idea. Trump doesn’t strike me as the kinda narcissist who likes other people answering questions directed at him. But if he did mind, he didn’t show it. Instead, he whispered loudly to the press, while playfully hiding his mouth from Cyril with his hand, “I’d rather have him answer it.”

CYRIL DISMISSES ‘AFRIKANER GENOCIDE’

Addressing the reporter directly, Cyril straightened up and said: “It will take…President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends and are here, when we have talks between us around a quiet table.”

“If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen (billionaire businessman Johann Rupert, and champ golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen) would not be here. My minister of agriculture (John Steenhuisen) would not be with me. So, it will take President Trump listening to their (Saffer’s) stories, and to their perspective,” he added.

“That…is the answer to your question”, Ramaphosa concluded confidently, beaming a big grin at the reporter.

AND THEN…SHOWTIME!

After hushing the rowdy press, Trump leaned in slightly, and quietly said to Ramaphosa, “Mr President I must say that we have thousands of stories talking about it. We have documentaries, we have news stories. I could show you a couple of things…and it has to be responded to.”

Then, Trump called for his aides to bring some articles to him, and asked for the lights to be turned down.

And that’s when the Team SA pleasure cruise went from smooth sailing…to choppy waters…to white squall.

The lights dimmed. It was show and tell time. Or, to quote Beetlejuice…“Showtime!”

Then, Trump asked Johann Rupert to “put it on”. Rupert hit the play button.

And immediately, a daunting chant now familiar to all South Africans and much of the world began to fade up; that now widely common comp video – that’s gone viral several times over – of Malema (and Zuma), along with thousands of their constituents, singing “Kill the Boer”.

THAT’S NOT A SMILE, IT’S A TERRIFIED GRIMACE

Well, if there were a few million or billion people who had no idea who Malema and Zuma were…or had never seen that video before…they were just brought up to speed by the White House. If Malema and Zuma were notorious for those songs before 21 May 2025…Trump just made them both superstars – in a Charles Manson and Idi Amin kinda way.

Anyone watching Cyril closely during those infinite agonising minutes, while that video played, would’ve noticed that he could hardly bring himself to look at the screen. He just sat there looking around the room, slow-blinking, visibly wincing, gripping and fingering the armrest on his chair, with a sickly half-smile on his face.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green later posted: “Why is the President of South Africa SMIRKING AND SMILING while President Trump plays a video of racist calls to kill white farmers in South Africa??!!!”

I don’t think she realised it wasn’t a smile…or a smirk. It was a shock-induced, fear-gripped, purse-lipped grimace.

But if the Malema-Zuma macabre music video was Trump’s left jab to Cyril’s jaw…a right hook to the nose was en route.

THEN CAME THE CROSSES (THAT CYRIL’S ‘NEVER SEEN’ BEFORE)

At the end of the video was a climan, if not most South Africans, have seen. It’s an aerial (helicopter) shot looking down on double rows of white crosses flanking a winding rural road, lined with hundreds of vehicles attending a memorial.

“These are the burial sites right here,” Trump said of the footage. “Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there’s approximately a thousand of them. They’re all white farmers, the family of white farmers. Those people are all killed”, Trump added.

(If he really wanted to rub Cyril’s nose in the blood-soaked facts, Trump could’ve lamented the fact that many of the victims were horribly tortured before being murdered.)

HERE’S WHERE TRUMP GOT IT WRONG

Here, however, Trump f**ked up. He claimed the crosses were burial sites. They’re not.

As reported by ABC and other outlets, that video shows a protest that took place on 5 September 2020, near Normandien. According to the local news outlet, Newcastle Advertiser, the protest was called after farmers Glenn and Vida Rafferty were murdered at their home in the area, days earlier.

Hermann Pretorius, a spokesperson for the Institute of Race Relations – who produced a video of the event – told ABC News: “Those crosses are not graves, they are commemorating farm murder victims”, he said.

“They were displayed temporarily as part of a protest.”

Pretorius said the crosses were removed afterwards.

I didn’t think there was anybody in SA who had not seen those crosses on that road. Turns out there is at least one person in the country that hasn’t.

Cyril Ramaphosa.

NEVER HEARD OF WITKRUIS, CYRIL?

Cyril squinted his eyes at the video for a few seconds, then, appearing befuddled and perplexed, half turned to Trump without looking at him, and asked: “Have they told you where that is, Mr President?”

Trump shook his head: “No.”

“No”, Ramaphosa echoed, turning back to the screen. “I would like to know where that is, because…this, I’ve never seen,” he said.

(Hmmm…I wonder if Cyril’s ever seen or heard of Witkruis Monument? If he has, he didn’t mention it to Trump).

After a lengthy pause, Trump said, a little too loudly: “It’s in SOUTH AFRICA, that’s where.”

Ramaphosa turned away from the screen and said: “But…okay. We need to find out.” Then he straightened his jacket and shifted in his seat, in a theatrical, business-like way that said; ‘Ja, nee, enough of this. Let’s get back to parley, Mr President‘.

It didn’t work.

Trump didn’t move or flinch or even acknowledge him. His eyes were still locked on the screen.

All Cyril could do is stare at the floor for a few seconds, then he shook his head briefly and briskly, as if trying to wake himself from this awful African fever dream.

(Go back and watch that part of the meeting again. Find a camera angle that captures Ramaphosa head-on while they’re watching that video. And tell me you don’t see a man that looks like he’s just been kicked in the nuts…by someone wearing steel toe-capped jackboots.)

So, at this point, Cyril had the choice of continuing to stare at the floor, the ceiling, around the room at the judgemental faces glaring back at him, or…turn back to that darn, damning video and pretend to be interested – which was what he opted for.

‘DEATH, DEATH, HORRIBLE DEATH!’

Finally, to Cyril’s visible relief, the video ended. But Trump wasn’t done sticking it in, breaking it off and rubbing salt in the wound. Not just yet.

Next, Trump pulled out that fat wad of articles that he called for earlier, articles reporting on farm murders. He flitted through them in front of Ramaphosa, the press and everyone else in the room, holding each one up for all to see. “Look”, he said. “These are articles over the last few days. Death…of people. Death. Death. Death. Horrible death. Death.”

When Trump was finally done waving those awful images around, Cyril furtively tried to explain himself and the situation in SA. Trump didn’t look too interested in what he had to say. (And, unfortunately, name-dropping Madiba doesn’t appear to have quite the weight and gravitas that it used to, say…back in the 90s? And don’t think Cyril didn’t try.)

While Cyril was scrambling to do damage control with verbal diarrhoea, Trump gathered up all those articles and dumped the bundle in Cyril’s hands while he was talking.

Quite the symbolic move, huh? “All that blood’s on your hands, buddy.”

DID RUPERT SELL OUT OR SAVE THE DAY?

If Ramaphosa was hoping that his golfing pals, Els and Goosen were going to dig him out of this diplomatic hole, he was wrong. That backfired.

In fact, according to some, it was Johann Rupert who “saved the day”.

Because he affirmed once and for all what every South African knows…that there IS in fact a genocide happening in South Africa, just NOT exclusively against white people.

It’s against us. All of us.

South Africans, “across the board” as Rupert put it, are being genocided by violent crime, wholesale, in numbers that rival a country at (civil) war. (Twenty thousand plus murders a year? That’s GOT to be a no-bullshit, hands-down genocide – in anybody’s books.)

Then again there are those that believe Els and Goosen are the true heroes of the day, and Rupert is a “traitor”.

A SEISMIC MEETING FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS

Regardless, what happened in that Oval Office on Wednesday 21 May 2025, was a politically seismic moment that will go down in history.

It is interesting to note that, in that entire meeting (in public and private), Trump did not pressure Ramaphosa or SA to drop the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel. (Made all the more interesting by Trump’s recent reported rift with Bibi Netanyahu.)

On his way out the White House door, just before getting into the limo, Ramaphosa told reporters the meeting went “very well”.

Wtf else could he say…