For the second time this year, Donald Trump ambushed the democratically elected leader of a US ally in the Oval Office. At the same time, he only has good things to say about authoritarian rulers who give him things.
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When Donald Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week, he called the kingdom’s authoritarian ruler a “friend” and praised him as “wise beyond his years.”
What he did not do was to instruct his staff to play a video showing evidence that a team of Saudi operatives murdered and dismembered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 and then tried to cover it up.
Trump did not hold up any kind of documents, such as this assessment by the intelligence community that MBS, as the crown prince is also known, authorized that operation, and he did not talk about how the Saudi government lied about what happened in its consulate in Istanbul that day.
Finally, the US president did not criticize Saudi Arabia for the massive human rights abuses taking place in the kingdom.
All of these things are well documented and rooted in fact.
Now let’s fast-forward a week to Wednesday’s meeting with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Trump used the occasion to ambush the democratically elected leader with unsubstantiated accusations, including a four-minute video, that his country is engaging in a “genocide” of white farmers. In doing so, he made a series of false and misleading claims.
While there is no doubt that South Africa’s transition from a racist regime in which a small white minority oppressed a large Black majority to a democracy has not been easy. There is also no doubt that the country’s high murder rate, which affects South Africans of all races, is a problem.
However, there is no evidence of a “genocide” taken place, which is why it is especially puzzling that Trump is prioritizing the settlement of white Afrikaners in the US over non-white residents of countries in which actual government-sponsored violence is taking place.
Or at least it would be puzzling if it didn’t fit in with the white nationalist views of many in the Trump administration, including South African-born Elon Musk, who also attended the meeting.
At one point, Trump referenced his top donor’s nationality and said “This is what Elon wanted.” It is unclear if he was referring to the reality-challenged attack on Ramaphosa.
But Trump spouting falsehoods is not even the main issue here. That’s not news.
What is noteworthy, however, is that this is the second time this year that he waylaid the democratically elected leader of a US ally in the Oval Office. This time, he even brought props.
At the same time, Trump routinely praises authoritarians, with whom he clearly feels more comfortable.
We have seen this in the past. However, the contrast between last week’s meeting with MBS, especially in light of his suspected role in the murder of a US-based journalist, and today’s Oval Office ambush was especially stark.
Of course, Ramaphosa, who has a long history of dealing with authoritarian white governments, knew just what would get him back into Trump’s good graces.
“I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” the South African president said at one point following a journalist’s question about Trump accepting a plane from Qatar.
That would probably put him back in the US president’s good graces.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
