Speaker 1: All zone media.
Speaker 2: In February of twenty twenty five, the President of the
Speaker 2: United States announced, first by social media and then by
Speaker 2: executive order that a white nationalist conspiracy theory is now
Speaker 2: official foreign policy. No longer relegated to racist message boards
Speaker 2: and poorly attended rallies, the idea that white South Africans
Speaker 2: are being violently persecuted is now center stage. In the
Speaker 2: months since the administration has doubled down on this stance,
Speaker 2: foreign aid to South Africa has been suspended, their ambassador
Speaker 2: has been expelled, and now State Department officials have begun
Speaker 2: interviewing white South Africans who have applied for refugee resettlement
Speaker 2: in the United States. Apartheid ended in South Africa thirty
Speaker 2: one years ago. It turns out some of the same
Speaker 2: people who fought tooth and nail to keep it back
Speaker 2: then are still around and they haven't stopped fighting. I'm
Speaker 2: Molly Conger, and this is weird.
Speaker 1: Little guys.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't like current events. I really prefer
Speaker 2: to root around the past and piece together the odds
Speaker 2: and ends of the life and crimes of someone who's
Speaker 2: done hurting other people. I had a great time writing
Speaker 2: five episodes about Dennis Mahon, a man whose career as
Speaker 2: a white supremacist activist span decades. But when it came
Speaker 2: time to write a follow up episode, I hate it
Speaker 2: to have to tell you that, even though Dennis will
Speaker 2: almost certainly die before he finish his prison sentence, the
Speaker 2: one he got for sending a bomb to the diversity
Speaker 2: office in Scottsdale, Arizona, the current political climate finished what
Speaker 2: he started. Republican politicians did what he couldn't do with
Speaker 2: that bomb, and they closed that office. And we find
Speaker 2: ourselves in something of a similar position now. These last
Speaker 2: few episodes have been a wild, sprawling narrative about white
Speaker 2: supremacist terrorism in South Africa in the final years of apartheid,
Speaker 2: and I've learned a lot of history that I'd never
Speaker 2: been exposed to before, and I've really enjoyed digging my
Speaker 2: way out of some of these unexpected rabbit holes. But
Speaker 2: it would be irresponsible of me to tell you such
Speaker 2: a long story and then leave you thinking that it
Speaker 2: was over, that it ended in nineteen ninety four, that
Speaker 2: when apartheid ended, the international networks of right wing extremists
Speaker 2: who'd done unspeakable things in its defense just faded away
Speaker 2: because they didn't, and they don't always need guns and
Speaker 2: bombs to get what they want. So we'll end this
Speaker 2: mini series where we started it the White House back
Speaker 2: in February. When I started down this path, I had
Speaker 2: just read the executive Order, the one titled addressing the
Speaker 2: Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa. In the
Speaker 2: week that order was signed, Trump had offered some insight
Speaker 2: into what was going on in his head in this
Speaker 2: post on truth social.
Speaker 3: South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of
Speaker 3: people very badly. It's a bad situation that the radical
Speaker 3: left media doesn't want so much as mention. A massive
Speaker 3: human rights violation at a minimum is happening for all
Speaker 3: to see. The United States won't stand for it. We
Speaker 3: will act also. I will be cutting off all future
Speaker 3: funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this
Speaker 3: situation has been completed.
Speaker 2: And that episode back in February goes into more detail
Speaker 2: about what he's getting at here. South African President Cyril
Speaker 2: Ramaposa had recently signed the Expropriation Act into law. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of misinformation and fear mongering built around a
Speaker 2: very tiny kernel of truth. In there as a quick refresher,
Speaker 2: The Expropriation Act does allow the Government of South Africa
Speaker 2: to expropriate land. That part's true, but only under certain
Speaker 2: specific conditions. And it is fundamentally not really that different
Speaker 2: from what we call eminent domain here in the United States,
Speaker 2: and that's a power that was given to our government
Speaker 2: by the Fifth Amendment. There's no racial component to it.
Speaker 2: Nobody's terrorizing white farmers. There's no language at all in
Speaker 2: the Expropriation Act about race. I spent probably too long
Speaker 2: trying to look for clues that would help me guess
Speaker 2: why he made that post on truth Social on February second.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you can see a really clear direct line which
Speaker 2: means something the president says or it does or posts online.
Speaker 2: And the Fox News segment that he had just been
Speaker 2: watching and that episode from back in February makes what
Speaker 2: I think is a pretty good case for how Trump's
Speaker 2: ideas about what's going on in South Africa were formed
Speaker 2: back when he posted about it for the first time
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, and back in twenty eighteen, he tweeted
Speaker 2: about South African land reform for the first time about
Speaker 2: forty five minutes after he heard of it on an
Speaker 2: episode of Tucker Carlson. But on February second, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: he made that truth social post while he was sitting
Speaker 2: on Air Force one en route to DC after a
Speaker 2: weekend golfing in Florida. His public schedule for that day
Speaker 2: doesn't give us much, but he did post several times
Speaker 2: that evening about Fox News host Mark Levin, and he
Speaker 2: posted an old clip from Levin's show, and he reposted
Speaker 2: one of Mark's old posts, and he posted in all caps.
Speaker 2: Watched Mark Levin tonight on Fox News eight pm Eastern
Speaker 2: Great Show, and Levin's show that evening doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: have touched on the issue of South Africa, So honestly,
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you how the idea got into his head.
Speaker 2: That night, after a long day on the golf course,
Speaker 2: he posted it around six nineteen pm, and then forty
Speaker 2: minutes later, as he's sitting on the tarmac after the
Speaker 2: plane landed, he reposted it. And as he's leaving for
Speaker 2: the White House, a reporter asked him about the post. So,
Speaker 2: on Tritoto, you said that you were going to touch
Speaker 2: it from South Africa. Will you plan to cut eight
Speaker 2: across other African nations, in white South and only South Africa.
Speaker 3: Terrible things are happening in South Africa.
Speaker 4: The leadership is.
Speaker 5: Doing some terrible things, horrible things.
Speaker 6: So if that's under investigation right now, we'll make a determination.
Speaker 3: And until such time as we find out what South
Speaker 3: Africa is doing.
Speaker 5: They're taking away land.
Speaker 4: They're confiscating land, and actually.
Speaker 3: They're doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.
Speaker 2: The far worse than that at the end of his
Speaker 2: remarks is almost certainly a reference to his belief in
Speaker 2: the white genocide conspiracy theory, that false narrative that white
Speaker 2: farmers in South Africa are being murdered in enormous numbers.
Speaker 2: And later that same week, in February of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump signed the executive order cutting off aid to
Speaker 2: South Africa, and it also directed DHS and the State
Speaker 2: Department to quote promote the resettlement of African er refugees
Speaker 2: escaping government sponsored race based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation,
Speaker 2: and so, in conjunction with his other executive orders ones
Speaker 2: that suspended all other refugee resettlement operations, this now puts
Speaker 2: white South Africans in a class all of their own.
Speaker 2: They're the only people on earth who are so persecuted,
Speaker 2: who are suffering so terribly that they are deserving of
Speaker 2: assistance from the United States. And the executive order ignited
Speaker 2: a flurry of activity on the right, both in the
Speaker 2: United States and in South Africa. Far right talking heads
Speaker 2: rushed to book South African guests, and one man in
Speaker 2: particular was very happy to oblige. In the last two months,
Speaker 2: Ernst Rootz has made the rounds. He's been interviewed by
Speaker 2: Ben Shapiro, Matt Gates, Tucker Carlson, Jack Bestobic, and Jordan Peterson.
Speaker 2: He's been on YouTube lives and shows that only exist
Speaker 2: on Twitter. Somehow, he made an appearance on a show
Speaker 2: hosted by Rinaldo Grause, a South African YouTuber whose political
Speaker 2: career was stopped dead in its tracks last summer. Just
Speaker 2: days after he was elected to parliament, his own parties
Speaker 2: stripped him of membership after video service to him calling
Speaker 2: for the murder of all black people, and he used
Speaker 2: both the American racial slur that you're probably familiar with
Speaker 2: and a South African equivalent. And roots also gave an
Speaker 2: interminably long interview to a benign sounding website called the
Speaker 2: White Papers Policy Institute, But as it turns out, the
Speaker 2: woman interviewing him has a long history of affiliation with
Speaker 2: neo Nazi groups, and Ernst Roots may sound familiar to you.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, he visited the United States in his
Speaker 2: capacity as the deputy CEO of the Africaner nationalist group Afroforum.
Speaker 2: He met with federal government officials and right wing think tanks. Notably,
Speaker 2: he spent a day at the Heritage Foundation. He took
Speaker 2: meetings with staffers for Ted Cruz, and during that visit,
Speaker 2: he appeared on an episode of The Talker Carlson Show
Speaker 2: back when it was actually on TV, back when it
Speaker 2: was appointment television for the president. And you might think
Speaker 2: that Ernst Roots would have nothing but praise for Trump's
Speaker 2: executive order. Right, He's finally getting this message out, someone
Speaker 2: in power is finally talking about this epidemic of white
Speaker 2: farm being murdered in South Africa, and he is He's
Speaker 2: grateful for that, sure, but he doesn't think Trump's proposed
Speaker 2: solution is the right one. Here's what he said when
Speaker 2: he sat down with Tucker Carlson at the end of February.
Speaker 7: On one part of it says that they will grant
Speaker 7: refugee status to africaners if they want to go to
Speaker 7: the US, which I don't think. In all fairness, we're
Speaker 7: really grateful for the public stance taken by the US,
Speaker 7: and in a certain sense they haven't gone far enough.
Speaker 7: But in a certain sense, I don't think the granting
Speaker 7: of refugee state is much of a solution. Some people
Speaker 7: will take that up. But that's why I told you
Speaker 7: the story of the Battle of Blood River and the
Speaker 7: vow we are culturally very very attached to South Africa.
Speaker 2: And here he is telling Jordan Peterson the same thing
Speaker 2: a few weeks later.
Speaker 7: That's why I'm so grateful that we spoke about the
Speaker 7: history part at first is our concern is that if
Speaker 7: we just leave the country, our culture dissolves and our
Speaker 7: communal identity dissolves and we become Americans or whatever and so.
Speaker 6: Well, plus the entire country descends into lawlessness, chaos and
Speaker 6: everyone dies. Yep, right, because if all the white South
Speaker 6: African farmers leave, that's one hundred percent what will happen.
Speaker 2: Ernst Rutz is a nationalist. He doesn't want to leave
Speaker 2: South Africa. He isn't being persecuted for his whiteness. He
Speaker 2: just misses the days when white minority rule meant the
Speaker 2: persecution of everyone else. And in both those interviews, Ruts
Speaker 2: spoke at some length about the importance of the Day
Speaker 2: of the Vow, about the covenant between God and the
Speaker 2: Africaner granting them that land they can't leave. Men like
Speaker 2: Ernst Roots are still standing on the banks of the
Speaker 2: Blood River waiting for God to sweep all the Africans
Speaker 2: out of their way, and ahead of that whirlwind press Junket.
Speaker 2: In February and March, Ernst Ruts actually resigned from his
Speaker 2: position as head of the Afrikaner Foundation, and that was
Speaker 2: an initiative under the umbrella of the Africanner interest group
Speaker 2: the Solidarity Movement, and Ruts says that he hadn't officially
Speaker 2: worked for Afroforum since twenty twenty three, but Afroform and
Speaker 2: the Africaner Foundation are both just part of the Solidarity movement.
Speaker 2: These are just facets of the same organization, and so
Speaker 2: now in February of twenty twenty five, he no longer
Speaker 2: works for any of these organizations. He no longer works
Speaker 2: for Solidarity at all, because it was Roots who got
Speaker 2: the organization into some pretty hot water.
Speaker 7: Well, all they're saying that we've the organizations that I
Speaker 7: was involved with at the time of committed treason, that
Speaker 7: we've been charged for treason.
Speaker 6: Even charged with treason.
Speaker 7: Yeah for what for speaking well, among others, for me
Speaker 7: speaking with you about what's happened as treason? Yeah, because
Speaker 7: it's bad mouthing your country.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've all made mistakes at work, but I
Speaker 2: can't imagine making such a mess of things that somebody
Speaker 2: gets charged with treason. And he's watering that down a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 2: The accusation isn't just that he's bad mouthing the country.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's legal in South Africa to say negative
Speaker 2: things about the nation. But almost immediately after Trump announced
Speaker 2: that he was cutting off aid to South Africa, a
Speaker 2: lot of South Africans blamed Afro Forum. Members of mkanto
Speaker 2: We sizway rallied outside of the police station in Cape
Speaker 2: Town and announced that they were filing a criminal complaint
Speaker 2: against Affro Forum, accusing them of treason. And just a
Speaker 2: quick note for those who aren't up to date on
Speaker 2: their South African current events, I wasn't on Kandoce's way
Speaker 2: is now its own political party. It does share a
Speaker 2: name with the group that functioned as the paramilitary arm
Speaker 2: of the African National Congress during the last decades of apartheid,
Speaker 2: but as of a few years ago, it is a
Speaker 2: political party.
Speaker 5: So just for clarity, the MK Party vehemently condemns the
Speaker 5: trees and US actions of Africa Forum, which has deliberately
Speaker 5: low it foreign powers to act against the sovereignty and
Speaker 5: economic interests of South Africa. Their betrayal is nothing less
Speaker 5: than an act of economic sabotage, a direct assault on
Speaker 5: our nations independence.
Speaker 2: From many South Africans, it was obvious Trump didn't come
Speaker 2: up with this idea on his own. There is a
Speaker 2: straight line between afrofums trips to the United States, their
Speaker 2: appearances in American right wing media, their collaboration with American
Speaker 2: think tanks, their English language propaganda videos targeting American audiences
Speaker 2: on American platforms, and the end result, which was this
Speaker 2: shift in US foreign policy. Even President Ramaposa has gone
Speaker 2: on record blaming Afroform and Solidarity for spreading the lies
Speaker 2: about South Africa that led to Trump's executive order. He
Speaker 2: called the group unpatriotic in remarks before the National Assembly
Speaker 2: in March.
Speaker 8: Fact, whether that is treason US or not is a
Speaker 8: meta that obviously our law enforcement agencies needs to look at.
Speaker 8: The National Prosecuting Agency needs to look at that. But
Speaker 8: I take a dim view, in fact, a very negative
Speaker 8: view off what has ensued as they run around the
Speaker 8: world bed mouthing their own country and putting their country
Speaker 8: into distribute, not by things that are happening, but by misinformation.
Speaker 2: The matter has been confirmed to be under investigation, but
Speaker 2: there has been no decision announced by the National Prosecuting
Speaker 2: Authority as to whether the case will proceed. When Ramaposa
Speaker 2: gave those remarks on March eleventh, twenty twenty five, he
Speaker 2: wasn't just talking about Ernst Roots going on.
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2: Roots had in fact already resigned from Solidarity by the
Speaker 2: time he returned to the US this year. But in
Speaker 2: late February, a delegation from Solidarity paid a visit to
Speaker 2: the United States. They posted quite a few videos of
Speaker 2: themselves outside various government buildings in Washington, d C. They
Speaker 2: posted some videos of them standing in lobbies of government
Speaker 2: buildings and one photo that appears to show the delegation
Speaker 2: touring the White House with visible visitors badges. There are
Speaker 2: no photos of any members of the delegation that I
Speaker 2: could find that show them with any actual US policymakers,
Speaker 2: but they did take a couple of selfies in front
Speaker 2: of a sign that says Committee on Foreign Affairs. One
Speaker 2: photo was taken outside the office of Senator Christopher Coons,
Speaker 2: a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and
Speaker 2: its Africa and Global Health Policy subcommittee. Their press releases
Speaker 2: about this visit don't name names, but they claim to
Speaker 2: have met with senior officials within the Trump administration during
Speaker 2: their visit.
Speaker 1: There's no direct.
Speaker 2: Claim made that they met with the President himself, although
Speaker 2: one of them did post a cartoon style drawing of
Speaker 2: the group that features a cartoon Trump standing with them
Speaker 2: in front of the White House, and that is perhaps
Speaker 2: meant to insinuate that they were a to secure an
Speaker 2: audience with the President. But one member of the delegation
Speaker 2: posted something that is more interesting to me than a
Speaker 2: selfie at the Capitol Building. On February twenty seventh, Jako
Speaker 2: Kleinhans wrote Day three in Washington, d c. Who influences
Speaker 2: US government policy a complex network of individuals, organizations, and
Speaker 2: governmental and non governmental structures worked daily to develop US
Speaker 2: government policy. Recent policy decisions on the relationship with South
Speaker 2: Africa have been developed by a few key players at
Speaker 2: influential organizations, together with policy specialist in the White House
Speaker 2: and Congress. The Solidarity Movement delegation currently visiting the USA
Speaker 2: met on day three with several of these influential people
Speaker 2: with whom we have forged good relationships over the past
Speaker 2: few years, to discuss a way forward. And underneath this
Speaker 2: wall of text posted in Afrikaans is a selfie. Visible
Speaker 2: in the photo behind Jacko is the entrance to the
Speaker 2: offices of the Heritage Foundation. That conservative think tank is not,
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, publicly commented on the
Speaker 2: recently serviced allegations that they worked closely with South African
Speaker 2: military intelligence to craft propaganda campaigns during the latter years
Speaker 2: of apartheid. South African news outlet The Daily Maverick did
Speaker 2: take extra care to note in their article that the
Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation has made no legal challenge to the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one book by a former South African policeman who
Speaker 2: claims that former Heritage Foundation president Edwin Fulner was often
Speaker 2: consulted for advice by South African intelligence operatives who ran
Speaker 2: the government's apartheid disinformation campaigns. And if you can remember
Speaker 2: all the way back to the first episode in this series,
Speaker 2: the first time Trump tweeted about South Africa, he was
Speaker 2: watching Tucker Carlson interview a policy analyst from the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2: Just something to mull over, I guess and whoever it
Speaker 2: was that the delegation was able to meet with at
Speaker 2: the White House, that person received an official memorandum from Solidarity,
Speaker 2: and they also posted that document to their website. Much
Speaker 2: like Ernst Rutz, they're grateful to the Trump administration for
Speaker 2: raising awareness about the plight of the white South African
Speaker 2: but they too want the United States to use its
Speaker 2: power to pressure South Africa to bend to the will
Speaker 2: of whites, rather than simply offering those aggrieved white South
Speaker 2: Africans the opportunity to settle in the United States. Much
Speaker 2: of the text of this memorandum reads pretty transparently as
Speaker 2: an attempt to smooth over the whole treason situation. They
Speaker 2: emphasize repeatedly that they do not support Trump's decision to
Speaker 2: cut off humanitarian aid, and they urge Washington not to
Speaker 2: suspend the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a US law
Speaker 2: that allows some African nations, including South Africa, tariff free
Speaker 2: access to US markets. And as much as they appreciate
Speaker 2: Trumps offer to take Africaners as refugees, they want to stay.
Speaker 2: One section of the memo reads, although individuals may qualify
Speaker 2: for a resettlement program, the majority of Africaners will still
Speaker 2: remain in South Africa. During the past thirty years, Africaners
Speaker 2: have begun to establish cultural infrastructure in South Africa so
Speaker 2: that we can still live here freely and safely in
Speaker 2: order for us to make a sustainable contribution toward the
Speaker 2: country and all its people. This is being done under
Speaker 2: the banner of the Solidarity movement, with Solidarity and AFROFUM
Speaker 2: being the largest organizations. Security structures, social structures, job structures,
Speaker 2: training structures, and cultural structures have been established. All of
Speaker 2: this is being done without state support, and at the
Speaker 2: bottom of that section they make several recommendations. They recommend
Speaker 2: the United States should, instead of offering refugee resettlement, offer
Speaker 2: direct aid to these Africaner communities quote to assist with
Speaker 2: community infrastructure protecting Africaners. This includes security structures, social structures,
Speaker 2: job structure, training structures, and infrastructure to settle africaners in
Speaker 2: vulnerable places in a concentrated manner. So they're saying they
Speaker 2: want help moving all of the white people to a
Speaker 2: place in South Africa. Still they don't want to leave
Speaker 2: South Africa, but they need help moving all of the
Speaker 2: white people into a concentrated place. So a place that's
Speaker 2: all white, and that sounds kind of like a mini
Speaker 2: ethno state, a folkstot, if you will, an island of
Speaker 2: apartheid and a sea of integration, and that does in
Speaker 2: fact already exist. And here's where I have to confess
Speaker 2: something to you. I overlooked something in retrospect pretty obvious.
Speaker 2: Remember I said a few minutes ago that Ernst Rutz
Speaker 2: had resigned from his position with Solidarity and his trip
Speaker 2: to the United States in March of twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: was totally separate from this delegation. Well it might not
Speaker 2: have actually been that separate. I mean they flew here separately,
Speaker 2: They were here during different weeks, and they claimed to
Speaker 2: be from separate organizations. Roots was here in the United
Speaker 2: States with used Stridum, the current sy of Urania, a
Speaker 2: white separatist community in South Africa's Northern Cape province. Yako Kleinhans,
Speaker 2: the International liaison for Solidarity, who was here with that
Speaker 2: other delegation. He used to be the CEO of Irania.
Speaker 2: He and his family live there. His wife, Magdalen, was
Speaker 2: featured in a Guardian article about the community in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: She runs the call center in Irania that recruits members
Speaker 2: and solicits donations. So they're the same people. The Venn
Speaker 2: diagram is a circle. They present slightly different public faces.
Speaker 2: I mean, Solidarity was allowed into the White House while
Speaker 2: the delegation officially from Irania was stuck doing events like
Speaker 2: Wine Wednesday at the New York Young Republicans Club.
Speaker 1: But it's sort of like.
Speaker 2: How sometimes the name brand ketchup and the store brand
Speaker 2: ketchup are made at the same factory and they just
Speaker 2: package them in different bottles. The two groups traveled the
Speaker 2: United States separately a few weeks apart. They met with
Speaker 2: slightly different crowds and marketed the message ever so slightly differently.
Speaker 2: But ultimately what they want is for the United States
Speaker 2: to officially recognize their three point five square mile whites
Speaker 2: only town of three thousand people as an autonomous state.
Speaker 2: And in February, while that first delegation, the one from
Speaker 2: Solidarity was in Washington, d C. An American neo Nazi
Speaker 2: group posted photos of their trip to South Africa. A
Speaker 2: regional chapter within the Active Club Network visited Urania quote
Speaker 2: to gain a deeper understanding of how whites can form
Speaker 2: intentional communities. During the first week of March, the delegation
Speaker 2: from Solidarity finished out their trip in the United States
Speaker 2: with a visit to California. Specifically, they went to Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: More specifically, they had lunch with Joel Poum, the editor
Speaker 2: at large of the far right rag Breitbart. After lunch,
Speaker 2: Pollock tweeted a photo captioned just had lunch at a
Speaker 2: kosher restaurant owned by Steven Spielberg's mom with four gentlemen
Speaker 2: from afroform Slash Solidarity. The South African government is investigating
Speaker 2: them for treason for the crime of sharing their views
Speaker 2: of Americans. The treason was delicious, okay, Joel, not to
Speaker 2: nitpick and first of all, super cringe, but Steven Spielberg's
Speaker 2: mom is dead. Lea Adler, Spielberg's mother did open the
Speaker 2: restaurant The Milky Way in Los Angeles, in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 2: but the restaurant closed after her death in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Her children reopened the restaurant in twenty nineteen. So it
Speaker 2: is still the same restaurant in the same place, but
Speaker 2: it isn't owned by a woman who's been dead for
Speaker 2: eight years. But it's probably much more important that you
Speaker 2: know one other fact about this lunch. At the time,
Speaker 2: in the first week of March of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: Joel Pollock was widely believed to be Trump's pick for
Speaker 2: ambassador to South Africa. There'd been no official public nomination,
Speaker 2: but Pollock was out there telling people that and going
Speaker 2: on the news in South Africa to that effect. And
Speaker 2: after lunch, Yacho Kline Hunts from Solidarity reposted that picture
Speaker 2: and offered his full throated endorsement of Pollock's appointment as ambassador.
Speaker 2: But barely two weeks after that lunch, Joel Pollock's chances
Speaker 2: of getting that job dropped to mere zero. Things were
Speaker 2: already a little dicey for him, considering he'd been publicly
Speaker 2: calling for sanctions against President Cyril Ramaposa personally, specifically because
Speaker 2: of South Africa's continued opposition to the genocide and Gaza.
Speaker 2: But the nail in the coffin really seems to have
Speaker 2: been his direct, per personal involvement in the expulsion of
Speaker 2: South Africa's ambassador to the United States. On March fourteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, the United States of America expelled the
Speaker 2: foreign diplomat. This sort of thing happens from time to time.
Speaker 2: Article nine of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes
Speaker 2: a pretty broad authority for this quote. The receiving state may,
Speaker 2: at any time, and without having to explain its decision,
Speaker 2: notify the sending state that the head of the mission
Speaker 2: or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission
Speaker 2: is persona non grata. It wasn't uncommon during the Cold War,
Speaker 2: usually after allegations of espionage, whether real or imagined, and
Speaker 2: it can be a way for a country to send
Speaker 2: a political message, to say to a country, we're kind
Speaker 2: of upset with you right now, even if the diplomatic
Speaker 2: staff themselves haven't done anything wrong. Several countries expelled Syrian
Speaker 2: diplomats in twenty twelve in response to the murder of
Speaker 2: civilians in Hala. In twenty twenty one, President Aragon declared
Speaker 2: diplomats from ten countries persona non grata and Turkey after
Speaker 2: those countries governments had called for the release of an
Speaker 2: imprisoned Turkish activist. Several Israeli diplomats were expelled from Britain
Speaker 2: and Australia in twenty ten after both countries discovered that
Speaker 2: Israel had used forged British and Australian passports to carry
Speaker 2: out assassinations in Dubai. In twenty eleven, the US ambassador
Speaker 2: to Ecuador was expelled after Wikilik's revealed that she believed
Speaker 2: President Korea had been aware of corruption within his police force,
Speaker 2: and the United States responded by expelling Ecuador's ambassador in return.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's not even political. The decision may be
Speaker 2: the result of personal misconduct by a member of the
Speaker 2: diplomatic staff. With some rather specific exceptions, ambassadors and their
Speaker 2: staff have diplomatic immunity. They can't be prosecuted, but they
Speaker 2: can be expelled. So for example, in twenty seventeen, New
Speaker 2: Zealand had to expel an American diplomat after the man
Speaker 2: got into some kind of violent physical altercation and the
Speaker 2: American government refused to waive his diplomatic community so that
Speaker 2: it could be prosecuted. In twenty twelve, the Philippines expelled
Speaker 2: the Panamanian diplomat accused of rape. Honestly, a lot of
Speaker 2: the examples of this that I found were related to
Speaker 2: lower level embassy staff who got drunk, got a dui,
Speaker 2: got into fights, or committed some kind of sex crime.
Speaker 2: There have also been more than a few cases of
Speaker 2: diplomats accused of using their position to facilitate drug trafficking.
Speaker 1: So it does happen.
Speaker 2: It doesn't even seem particularly rare, especially if you're including
Speaker 2: these examples of lower level embassy staff who maybe got
Speaker 2: in a bar fight, but it doesn't usually happen. By tweet,
Speaker 2: let's work backwards. At four forty two pm Eastern Time,
Speaker 2: on March fourteenth, twenty twenty five, Secretary of State Marco
Speaker 2: Rubio tweeted South Africa's ambassador to the United States is
Speaker 2: no longer welcome in our great country. Ibrahim Rusoul is
Speaker 2: a race baiting politician who hates America and hates Potus.
Speaker 2: We have nothing to discuss with him, and so he
Speaker 2: is considered persona non grad up. That last bit is
Speaker 2: in all caps, which is why I had to yell it,
Speaker 2: and for the record, on that read, I did pronounce
Speaker 2: Ibrahim Russul's name Ibrahim Razul, which is his name. But
Speaker 2: in this I guess official State Department tweet, Marco Rubio
Speaker 2: did misspell his name as Emra him Ressool, So take
Speaker 2: that as you will. But Rubio's tweet included a link
Speaker 2: to a Breitbart article, the headline of which is South
Speaker 2: African Ambassador Ibrahim Razul Colan Trump is leading global white
Speaker 2: supremacist movement. The article, written by Joel Pollock, had gone
Speaker 2: up earlier that same day. Article might not be the
Speaker 2: right word for it. I don't know what you call
Speaker 2: what appears on Breitbart's website, but Pollock only actually wrote
Speaker 2: six sentences in the original piece, but those sentences frame
Speaker 2: the actual content. It's a video clip accompanied by a
Speaker 2: transcript of the video of statements made by South African
Speaker 2: Ambassador Ibrahim Rasul during a webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe
Speaker 2: Institute for Strategic Reflection, a South African think tank just
Speaker 2: called MISTRA for short.
Speaker 9: What Donald Trump is launching is an assault on incumbency
Speaker 9: those who are in power by mobilizing a supremacism against
Speaker 9: the incumbency at home, and I think I've illustrated abroad
Speaker 9: as well.
Speaker 2: He was speaking to a small group of academics and
Speaker 2: rasseul is talking about the ways in which American politics
Speaker 2: have changed. He later explained to a reporter, my remarks
Speaker 2: were speaking to South African intelligentsia, intellectuals, political leaders, and
Speaker 2: others to alert them to a changed tradition in the
Speaker 2: United States that the old way of doing business with
Speaker 2: the US was not going to work.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I watched most of that webinar. I'm not gonna lie in.
Speaker 2: It's two hours long. I didn't watch all of it.
Speaker 2: I watched most of that webinar, but I watched all
Speaker 2: of the parts where Ibrahim Razu speaking, and nothing he
Speaker 2: said felt shocking to me. He wasn't being hysterical or hyperbolic.
Speaker 2: He's not tearing his hair and gnashing his teeth. He
Speaker 2: had some interesting observations about the way the white South
Speaker 2: African functions as a rhetorical dog whistle for white victimhood
Speaker 2: within Trump's narrative, But he didn't say anything wild. He's
Speaker 2: not calling for violence or talking about radical shifts in policy.
Speaker 2: He's a diplomat, right. He was just making correct observations
Speaker 2: about the political climate that it is his job to navigate.
Speaker 2: But those remarks, with Joel Pollock's six sentences of commentary,
Speaker 2: made their way to Marco Rubio within hours, and by
Speaker 2: that afternoon, Rubio had declared Rasoul persona nograda and ordered
Speaker 2: him to leave the United States. When Rozoul arrived home
Speaker 2: in South Africa on March twenty third, he issued a
Speaker 2: statement He's standing by what he said about the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: and his four page statement has some real bangers. It
Speaker 2: goes pretty hard as far as diplomatic statements go. Quote,
Speaker 2: when we have been the victims of apartheid and saw
Speaker 2: how it cannot tolerate free speech and independent judiciary or
Speaker 2: even peaceful dissent, then we can smell the birth of
Speaker 2: chauvinism globally since the fear it engenders. Hear its words
Speaker 2: and see its signs. And Razul says that quote. In
Speaker 2: meetings with Senators and Congress members, and in the weekly
Speaker 2: forums we addressed of think tanks and business associations, and
Speaker 2: in the few meetings with the administration, we were forced
Speaker 2: to discuss seriously how Africaners could be refugees in the USA,
Speaker 2: while A and C leaders are threatened with personal sanctions,
Speaker 2: we had to have void arguing how there was a
Speaker 2: genocide in Israel. But diplomacy is not the art of lying.
Speaker 2: It is the art of telling the truth gently and constructively.
Speaker 2: Pollack sees on one line of that statement, in particular,
Speaker 2: a parenthetical mention of an anonymous participant in the webinar,
Speaker 2: who Rasoul calls one ex South African anti intellectual hatchetman
Speaker 2: hiding under a pseudonym, and that's obviously a reference to
Speaker 2: Joel Pollock. Rasoul is implying that Pollock himself not only
Speaker 2: joined that webinar live, but participated in it without disclosing
Speaker 2: his name or affiliation, and in this case his affiliation
Speaker 2: would be editor of American conservative website Breitbart dot com
Speaker 2: and also current contender for American Ambassador to South Africa.
Speaker 2: Because during the Q and A portion, the moderator read
Speaker 2: submitted questions out loud, and when he did so, he
Speaker 2: read the question asker's name, and when the question was
Speaker 2: from a reporter, the name of the outlet. The very
Speaker 2: first question though, was from anonymous.
Speaker 4: First, because I like to start with something funny, an
Speaker 4: anonymous comment for Ambassador Usoul Ambassador to Ssool's analysis of
Speaker 4: the US may be correct. However, he's doing South Africa
Speaker 4: no service by speaking this way. His job is to
Speaker 4: represent South African interests in Washington, not to be a
Speaker 4: left doing militant Ambassador Zoul.
Speaker 2: Now, can I tell you for sure that that question
Speaker 2: was submitted by Joel Pollock? Of course not, but that
Speaker 2: appears to be what Ibraham Razool is implying in his
Speaker 2: statement that he believes that Pollock tweeted a screenshot of
Speaker 2: that portion of the statement and said ex Ambassador Ibrahim
Speaker 2: Rescuol believes he was done in by a spy. Good
Speaker 2: luck hunting. I watched his remarks on YouTube after they
Speaker 2: had been publicly available at Miestra's channel for hours. Is
Speaker 2: incompetence a defense to defamation in South African law? So
Speaker 2: Pollack is in this tweet insinuating that he could sue
Speaker 2: Ibrahim Rescoul for defamation for implying that Pollock was in
Speaker 2: the webinar. I don't know anything about South African law,
Speaker 2: but I don't think in an American court a claim
Speaker 2: of defamation would hold up because he didn't actually say
Speaker 2: Joel Pollock's name. I guess if Joel Pollock identifies publicly
Speaker 2: as an anti intellectual hatchet man, he's welcome to make
Speaker 2: that argument in court. But I digress, because back to
Speaker 2: his actual acclaim, he's saying he wasn't in the webinar live.
Speaker 2: He watched the replay on YouTube hours after the ended.
Speaker 2: And the problem with that is that it isn't true.
Speaker 2: The webinar was live. You could pre register and participate
Speaker 2: in the Zoom meeting, or you could just watch it
Speaker 2: live on YouTube. And the event was from ten am
Speaker 2: to noon Johannesburg time, and that means that it started
Speaker 2: at four am here on the East Coast and one
Speaker 2: am in California, which is where Joel Pollack lives. And
Speaker 2: I'm reasonably certain he was indeed in California that day
Speaker 2: because the night before he posted a photo of the sunset,
Speaker 2: and that morning he posted a photo of the sun rise,
Speaker 2: and both photos were posted at the time that the
Speaker 2: sun rose and set in the part of California where
Speaker 2: he lives, and there are visible palm trees. So when
Speaker 2: Joel Pollock tweeted the link to his article at eight
Speaker 2: forty five am Eastern time, that's five forty five am,
Speaker 2: where he lives, and the source code for the web
Speaker 2: page shows that the article went live at eight thirty
Speaker 2: five am Eastern. Again, that's five thirty five am Pacific,
Speaker 2: and that's two and a half hours after the event ended.
Speaker 2: Those six sentences didn't take two hours to write, but
Speaker 2: he would have had to download the entire video, cut
Speaker 2: the sections he wanted to post, transcribe those sections, and
Speaker 2: get everything onto the website. The other problem, though, is
Speaker 2: not how long it would have taken to cut the clips.
Speaker 2: It's that he could not have watched a two hour
Speaker 2: video and then written the article if he didn't start
Speaker 2: watching the video until quote hours after the event ended
Speaker 2: and the final video was available for playback online. An
Speaker 2: op ed written by the director of the think tank
Speaker 2: that hosted the event takes aim at Pollack, arguing that
Speaker 2: it was no accident that his article made its way
Speaker 2: to the White House so quickly. Quote Russeul has been
Speaker 2: articulating these views and other interactions with US audiences. The
Speaker 2: difference in this case is that Joel Pollack at Breitbart
Speaker 2: News himself campaigning to be US ambassador in South Africa,
Speaker 2: selectively quoted from Russeul's presentation deliberately to incite the US administration.
Speaker 2: But Joel Pollock got what he wanted, kind of. He
Speaker 2: got Ibrahim Russeul expelled from the United States, got him fired.
Speaker 2: Ibrahim Russeul isn't the ambassador to the United States anymore.
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a monkey's paw situation for Joel Pollock,
Speaker 2: though the whole affair ended up ruining his own ambitions
Speaker 2: of becoming an ambassador. Within days of all this going down,
Speaker 2: Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighter's party vowed that they would
Speaker 2: block Pollock from entering South Africa at all if he
Speaker 2: was appointed ambassador, and they said that they could ensure
Speaker 2: President Ramaposo wouldn't accept the appointment. A presidential spokesman was
Speaker 2: a little more diplomatic about this, but they did go
Speaker 2: on the record that the President was concerned about the
Speaker 2: possibility of Pollock being appointed ambassador because quote, he is
Speaker 2: engaged in a very divisive and very damaging manner towards
Speaker 2: South Africa and South Africa related issues. By March twenty six,
Speaker 2: just twelve days after Pollock's post cost Ambassador to School
Speaker 2: his job, it was clear that he'd cost himself the
Speaker 2: ambassador's job to Trump boasted on Truth Social that he
Speaker 2: would be nominating Brent Bozell as the United States Ambassador
Speaker 2: to South Africa. Brent Mozelle is not a better choice.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of history behind that name, especially considering
Speaker 2: he shares it with his father, Leo Brent Mozell the Second.
Speaker 2: He was William F. Buckley's best friend and Joseph McCarthy's
Speaker 2: speech writer. And then there is of course his son,
Speaker 2: Leo Brent Bozell the fourth, who was convicted of five
Speaker 2: felonies before getting pardoned along with all of the other
Speaker 2: January six rioters. And we can't get into all that
Speaker 2: not today. The thing you might be interested to know
Speaker 2: about Leo Brent Mozell the Third is that he pretty
Speaker 2: actively opposed the idea of ending apartheid, and not just
Speaker 2: as a casual private opinion. This wasn't an ugly thought
Speaker 2: he was having at home by himself.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty seven he was the head of the
Speaker 2: National Conservative Political Action Committee, and in that capacity he
Speaker 2: signed on as a coalition partner for a group called
Speaker 2: the Coalition Against a n C Terrorism, and that year
Speaker 2: the group hosted a summit to oppose a meeting between
Speaker 2: the U S Secretary of State and Oliver Tambo, who
Speaker 2: was at the time the leader of the African National Congress.
Speaker 2: And speakers at the summit that they held included policy
Speaker 2: analysts from groups like the Heritage Foundation. They also brought
Speaker 2: in a South African political activist named John Gogotya. Gogatya
Speaker 2: was the founder and leader of a political organization in
Speaker 2: South Africa. It was allegedly a group of black moderates
Speaker 2: who opposed multi racial democracy. Gogotya actually made several trips
Speaker 2: to the United States to lobby against US sanctions on
Speaker 2: the apartheid regime. He did turn out to be employed
Speaker 2: by South African military intelligence, but you probably already guessed that.
Speaker 2: That same year, nineteen eighty seven, Bozell produced a series
Speaker 2: of television commercials urging Americans to write to the White
Speaker 2: House to express their support for the Nicaraguan contras. Before
Speaker 2: the commercials were released, Bozell attended a screening of the
Speaker 2: videos with his special guest, Death Squad leader Adolfo Calero.
Speaker 2: So there's definitely some baggage there for Bozell. The South
Speaker 2: African Party that he was calling terrorists in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: holds the presidency right now. Cyril Ramaposa, the current President
Speaker 2: of South Africa, was one of the African National Congress's
Speaker 2: negotiators during the talks that ended apartheid. While there was
Speaker 2: some public uncertainty as to whether Ramaposa would admit Pollock
Speaker 2: as an ambassador, I haven't seen any speculation that the
Speaker 2: President would refuse to accept Bozell. But honestly, once Trump
Speaker 2: posted that online that he was going to nominate Bozell,
Speaker 2: there was not a lot of follow up to that,
Speaker 2: so I guess we'll have to wait and see if
Speaker 2: he's even confirmed. Because among the countless problems created every
Speaker 2: day by the current administration is this lack of follow up.
Speaker 2: It seems like every day the President just fires off
Speaker 2: some half baked demand that doesn't really have any clear
Speaker 2: force of law or plan for implementation, and maybe some
Speaker 2: government office is working on implementing the new policy, and
Speaker 2: maybe they aren't. It's hard to say that Executive order
Speaker 2: back in February called for the Secretary of State and
Speaker 2: the Secretary of Homeland Security to prioritize humanitarian relief, including
Speaker 2: admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions program
Speaker 2: for Africanners, and then a month later, on March seventh,
Speaker 2: he posted on truth Social any farmer with family from
Speaker 2: South Africa seeking to flee that country for reasons of
Speaker 2: safety will be invited to the United States of America
Speaker 2: with a rapid pathway to citizenship. This process will begin immediately.
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, the website for the US Embassy
Speaker 2: in South Africa posted a very generic set of FAQs
Speaker 2: about the refugee admissions program, but it doesn't have any
Speaker 2: information specific to this program or any particular timeline. It
Speaker 2: just directs those who are interested in inquiring about the
Speaker 2: program to send a message to a State Department email
Speaker 2: address Pretoria PRM info, and the PRM there is the
Speaker 2: abbreviation for the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration,
Speaker 2: So at the very least we know the State Department
Speaker 2: set up an email address.
Speaker 6: For this.
Speaker 2: And a few days after that page went up, the
Speaker 2: New York Times reported that they had obtained documents outlining
Speaker 2: a plan that the administration was calling Mission South Africa,
Speaker 2: and phase one of the plan was already under way.
Speaker 2: The State Department had dispatched teams to convert vacant office
Speaker 2: space in Pretoria for use by US officials who are
Speaker 2: going to go over there and review the over eight
Speaker 2: thousand applications that had already been received. And in last week,
Speaker 2: on April twenty fourth, Reuters reported that US refugee officers
Speaker 2: had in fact flown to Pretoria to begin interviewing the
Speaker 2: applicants whose applications were successfully reviewed, and they report that
Speaker 2: at least thirty Afrikaners who had applied for refugee resettlement
Speaker 2: have had their applications approved.
Speaker 1: The sources are.
Speaker 2: All unnamed, and the White House and the Embassy declined
Speaker 2: to comment. Anonymous Department of Homeland Security employees told Reuters
Speaker 2: that applicants who claimed to have been persecuted by black
Speaker 2: South Africans had gained preliminary approval. Another employee told the outlet,
Speaker 2: I imagine some will be denied, as we do in
Speaker 2: all cases, but I think there is administrative.
Speaker 1: Pressure to approve these.
Speaker 2: The article is careful to note that they attempted to
Speaker 2: and were unable to verify the stories of persecution that
Speaker 2: were shared with them by several of the applicants, and
Speaker 2: the article ends with a quote from the only person
Speaker 2: who gave their name a woman named Katya Biden. Biden
Speaker 2: works with a very newly formed organization called Americaners. According
Speaker 2: to their website, their mission is to assist South Africans
Speaker 2: in navigating this process and successfully move to the United
Speaker 2: States as refugees. The homepage has a very helpful set
Speaker 2: of FAQs. You're basics like do I need a visa?
Speaker 2: Do I need a lawyer? And they say no on
Speaker 2: both of those, you don't need that. It's going to
Speaker 2: be easy. They assure the reader that, of course you
Speaker 2: can take your pets with you. The job market is
Speaker 2: great there, and you don't need any vaccinations. My favorite question, though,
Speaker 2: is will I have to prove persecution? And the answer
Speaker 2: is no, you don't have to prove it. Quote no,
Speaker 2: you don't. This requirement only occurs when an individual slash
Speaker 2: group initiates the refugee status request where the circumstances in
Speaker 2: the problem country are unknown. In the South Africa case,
Speaker 2: the US is not only aware of the racial prejudice
Speaker 2: towards minorities, but President Trump himself has laid out the
Speaker 2: case to that effect. So there you have it. This
Speaker 2: is the most obvious and clear cut case of persecution
Speaker 2: that has ever existed in human history. People who are
Speaker 2: fleeing active genocides, active war zones have to do that, yes,
Speaker 2: but if you're a white person in South Africa, it's
Speaker 2: very obvious that you are suffering, so don't even bother.
Speaker 2: And the site assures prospective refugees that this program isn't
Speaker 2: just for farmers, even though Trump seems to have been
Speaker 2: motivated by the twin boogeymen of farm murders and farm seizures,
Speaker 2: issues that even if they were real, would only affect farmers,
Speaker 2: but the site assures the reader that all Africaners are eligible.
Speaker 2: Guidance from the administration has been muddled and rare and contradictory.
Speaker 2: In several of his comments, Trump is definitely using the
Speaker 2: word farmers, but in the executive Order he does use
Speaker 2: the word africaners. A statement from a State Department official
Speaker 2: used the language descendants of settlers being abused by the government,
Speaker 2: and a State Department document just as disfavored minorities. And
Speaker 2: it sounds like everyone is just trying to avoid saying
Speaker 2: white people. And I guess that's good news for Katya Biden,
Speaker 2: that woman who works for the Americaners website. She was
Speaker 2: wearing a make America Great Again hat when she showed
Speaker 2: up at the embassy for her interview, But she isn't
Speaker 2: a farmer. According to her personal website, she is a
Speaker 2: self love coach. For just two hundred dollars an hour,
Speaker 2: you can call Katya on Zoom for a one on
Speaker 2: one faith based trauma recovery session to heal from your
Speaker 2: toxic relationships. It's audio only, though, she is not going
Speaker 2: to turn on the camera, not even if you buy
Speaker 2: the twenty dollars twelve week Self Love Journey mentoring package.
Speaker 2: Aside from Biden, everyone Reuter spoke to declined to be
Speaker 2: named in the article, so it's hard to s out
Speaker 2: how many people went in for interviews, what their stories
Speaker 2: are if they're all sincere. But I did find one
Speaker 2: woman on Facebook who has been posting in multiple groups
Speaker 2: for Africaners interested in moving to the United States, and
Speaker 2: she actually started posting about this a few days before
Speaker 2: The New York Times broke the story that US officials
Speaker 2: had begun conducting the interviews in Pretoria. So I'm inclined
Speaker 2: to believe she is talking about a real thing that
Speaker 2: happened because she couldn't have pulled this from the news.
Speaker 2: So a few days before that story broke, a woman
Speaker 2: named Anna Lee posted, Hi, everybody, my husband and I
Speaker 2: just finished our preliminary interview with the US Embassy in Pretoria.
Speaker 2: From what I understand, the interviewers were delegates SLASH, representatives
Speaker 2: of the Bureau of Population Refugees in Migration US Department
Speaker 2: of State just sent to South Africa for this week's interviews.
Speaker 2: Traveling back to the US tonight, she stated in our
Speaker 2: invitational email, but this interview was to collect information on
Speaker 2: individual's experience, not for a f application. She was very polite,
Speaker 2: asked us a few basic questions, then spent most of
Speaker 2: the ninety plus minutes asking, listening, and typing our life
Speaker 2: experiences and instances where SLASH when we were affected, deprived, persecuted,
Speaker 2: or wronged due to our race. A lot of detail
Speaker 2: was asked. Most of the focus was on these specific experiences,
Speaker 2: and she goes on to say that she doesn't have
Speaker 2: much more information, but she was told that she'll hear
Speaker 2: from Homeland Security in the coming weeks and that officers
Speaker 2: from the US Refugee Admissions Program will be arriving in
Speaker 2: South Africa sometime soon. Unnily and her husband do not
Speaker 2: appear to be farmers. Her husband is a real estate agent.
Speaker 2: They have several adult children, and they appear to be
Speaker 2: financially secure enough to enjoy the occasional international vacation. But
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting that she noted how fixated
Speaker 2: that State Department employee was on collecting anecdotes about white persecution.
Speaker 2: They spent most of that hour and a half long
Speaker 2: interview trying to get them to talk about times where
Speaker 2: they'd experienced anti white racism. And then just last week,
Speaker 2: on April twenty fifth, Katyabeden, that employee of the Americaners Network,
Speaker 2: tweeted that the first South African families approved for resettlement
Speaker 2: in the United States will arrive here quote next week, which,
Speaker 2: if she's telling the truth, would mean that they could
Speaker 2: already be here as you're listening to this. The administration
Speaker 2: has still not offered any clear explanation of how the
Speaker 2: process works or if it's already underway. So it's possible
Speaker 2: she's making that up to keep people hopeful, to keep
Speaker 2: them going to her website. But it's equally possible that
Speaker 2: the Trump administration plucked a couple of the most racist
Speaker 2: families in South Africa and just put them on a
Speaker 2: plane to Georgia or something. We don't know. Will Trump
Speaker 2: follow through on any part of this hard to say
Speaker 2: there is so much more to say about this story,
Speaker 2: especially because turns out it isn't over. But I know
Speaker 2: this story has been going on for too long because
Speaker 2: I'm starting to recognize the words when I open a
Speaker 2: web page that's in Afrikaans. I had imagined a much
Speaker 2: tidier ending to this story, one that I poured two
Speaker 2: months and more than fifty thousand words into. But to
Speaker 2: be quite honest with you, I watched way too much
Speaker 2: Trucker Carlson this week, and I'm trying to have a
Speaker 2: wedding in a couple of days. I won't be back
Speaker 2: with brand new, full length episodes for the next two weeks,
Speaker 2: but I am going to try to get something together
Speaker 2: so that there's something for you on your feed while
Speaker 2: I'm gone, so you won't.
Speaker 1: Miss me too much.
Speaker 2: So be good to each other, and please don't do
Speaker 2: anything that's going to make you one of my weird
Speaker 2: Little guys. Weird Little Guys is a production of The
Speaker 2: Poolzone Media and iHeartRadio. It's research, written and recorded by
Speaker 2: me Mollie Conger. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and
Speaker 2: Robert Evans. The show is edited by the wildly talented
Speaker 2: Rory Gigan. The theme music was composed by Brad Dickert.
Speaker 2: You can email me at Weird Little Guys Podcast at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com. I will definitely read it, but I
Speaker 2: probably won't answer it. It's something personal.