President Trump is offering to resettle white South Africans in the US, and his white South African bestie may have something to do with it. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Travis Larchuk, edited by Miranda Kennedy and Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Tech billionaire Elon Musk in the Oval Office of the White House. Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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The South African situation is very, very dangerous and very bad for a lot of people. There's tremendously bad things going on, including the confiscation of property and worse, much worse than that. You know what I'm talking about.
You might not know what he's talking about. We got you. President Trump says that Afrikaners, white South Africans who decades ago architected a brutal system of segregation laws known as apartheid, are now themselves victims of discrimination after the passage of a law that allows their land to be expropriated without compensation.
Trump is offering these white South Africans resettlement in the U.S. and they are gently turning him down.
We see our future in Africa.
But what got Trump interested in South Africa? And is it unelected white South African Vice President Elon Musk? We're going to ask on Today Explained.
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This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Chris McGreal. Chris is a reporter for The Guardian who covered South Africa for many years, including the end of apartheid and the start of South Africa's democracy. Recently, Chris wrote a piece about the influential white South Africans in President Trump's orbit.
The argument is being made that Afrikaners who were the group that imposed apartheid on South Africa in 1948, the very rigid form of racial segregation, are now victims of the post-apartheid era, that they're being targeted with…
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