EXCLUSIVE: Disgusting Posts From Trump South Africa Refugee

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes - "EXCLUSIVE: Disgusting Posts From Trump South Africa Refugee"

Episode Information:

• Title: EXCLUSIVE: Disgusting Posts From Trump South Africa Refugee
• Host/Author: The Bulwark
• Release Date: May 14, 2025

Overview: In this episode of Bulwark Takes, hosts JVL and Will Sommer, alongside guest Carl Kleinhaus, delve into the controversial case of a South African refugee, Carl Kleinhaus, who was recently granted asylum in the United States. The discussion explores the vetting process under the Trump administration, the implications of allowing individuals with problematic social media histories into the country, and the broader ramifications for American immigration policy.

---

1. Arrival of South African Refugees

JVL opens the discussion by detailing the recent State Department action:

"A couple days ago, the State Department sent a plane, a government plane, to South Africa to bring 59 refugees here seeking asylum for persecution in South Africa. They also sent a Deputy Secretary of State to Dulles Airport to receive them warmly, hold a press conference, and talk about how great these people were." [00:15]

Will Sommer elaborates on the vetting criteria:

"Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country. So The President on February 7, issued an executive order about the egregious conditions in South Africa... these folks... have been carefully vetted pursuant to our refugee standards." [00:51]

2. Uncovering Problematic Social Media Histories

JVL raises concerns about the vetting process:

"I wonder if any of these guys have any problematic social media history, since that's a thing we evidently do about refugees and immigrants now. And it turns out, ding, ding, ding, we sure do." [01:30]

Carl Kleinhaus introduces the focal point of the episode:

"So this concerns one of the Africana refugees, Carl Kleinhaus... on his Twitter account, Carl has made some, you know, some not so flattering statements about Jews, about Israel. He said Jews are naturally untrustworthy..." [02:08]

3. Analysis of Kleinhaus's Online Activities

Carl Kleinhaus provides a detailed breakdown of Kleinhaus's social media:

"He's hanging out. He's one of the guys supposedly fleeing the white genocide in South Africa... he posted... anti Semitic or anti Israel statements... trying to immigrate here... this has been a real issue." [02:57]

JVL compares Kleinhaus's online presence to broader political sentiments:

"His tweets... looked like a generic MAGA feed... a lot of Trump memes, a lot of Tesla worship... he's more in the weeds on American politics than, I gotta say, like 60% of American voters." [03:25]

4. Implications of Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Sentiments

Carl Kleinhaus discusses the potential consequences of Kleinhaus's statements:

"He has comments that I think if these were made by a Muslim applicant, to immigrate here would absolutely be disqualifying... It's anti Semitism... that goes against U.S. foreign policy." [08:21]

JVL emphasizes the importance of fair asylum adjudication:

"The answer isn't to take Mr. Kleinhaus and ship him back. The answer is... we respect First Amendment rights for everyone and we adjudicate fairly and completely claims of asylum for everyone." [09:22]

5. Critique of Current Immigration Policies

JVL expresses frustration with selective immigration acceptance:

"It's a deep moral stain on America... welcome people who may or may not have valid asylum claims, while trying to actively get rid of Afghans who helped America." [12:04]

Carl Kleinhaus agrees, highlighting the selective nature of refugee acceptance:

"They're selecting for a group that is majority Christian, certainly all white, and also right wing... that's not what immigration is supposed to be about." [12:04]

6. Conclusion: The State of American Immigration

JVL concludes with a strong criticism of the current administration's stance:

"White nationalism for the win. Good luck, America." [14:03]

Summary of Key Points:

• Vetting Process: The Trump administration claims rigorous vetting to ensure refugees do not pose national security threats and can assimilate easily.
• Problematic Refugees: Carl Kleinhaus, a South African refugee, exhibits anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments on social media, raising questions about the efficacy of the vetting process.
• Selective Acceptance: The administration appears to favor refugees who align with specific political and cultural views, particularly those that are white and right-wing.
• Policy Critique: The hosts argue that such selective policies undermine the principles of fair asylum adjudication and reflect a broader agenda of white nationalism.
• First Amendment Rights: Emphasis on protecting the First Amendment rights of all individuals, regardless of their views, within the framework of immigration.

Notable Insights:

• The episode highlights the tension between national security concerns and the ethical obligation to provide refuge.
• It underscores the potential for political biases to influence immigration policies, leading to discriminatory outcomes.
• The discussion advocates for a more inclusive and fair approach to asylum adjudication, consistent with American values of diversity and freedom of speech.

Conclusion: This episode of Bulwark Takes offers a critical examination of the current U.S. immigration policies under the Trump administration, specifically focusing on the case of Carl Kleinhaus. By analyzing the intersection of social media behavior, political ideology, and refugee vetting processes, the hosts present a compelling argument against selective immigration practices and call for a return to equitable and principled asylum adjudication.

Transcript

[ChatGPT]

You were made to travel the world and the seven seas and countless lakes and innumerable rivers and one perfect pond. Get travel ideas from ChatGPT on Expedia. Made to travel.

[JVL]

Hello, everyone. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Will Sommer. And man, oh, man, are you about to take a journey, Will? A couple days ago, the State Department sent a plane, a government plane, to South Africa to bring 59 refugees here seeking asylum for persecution in South Africa. They also sent a Deputy Secretary of State to Dulles Airport to receive them warmly, hold a press conference, and talk about how great these people were.

[Will Sommer]

Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country. So The President on February 7, issued an executive order about the egregious conditions in South Africa. And all of these folks who have just come in today have been carefully vetted pursuant to our refugee standards. But again, the President has recognized the dire situation of this particular group of people. And again, they went through the. The process.

[JVL]

And I remember when this happened, I thought to myself, I wonder if any of these guys have any problematic social media history, since that's a thing we evidently do about refugees and immigrants now. And it turns out, ding, ding, ding, we sure do. Tell the people what you found.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

Yeah, sure. So this concerns one of the Africana refugees, Carl Kleinhaus, who, you know, sounds.

[JVL]

Like he should be a character from Die Hard. He sounds like one of Alan Rickman's crew. Right. Carl Carlson.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

That is exactly what I was thinking. And so, you know, this is. You can see this guy at the press event. He's hanging out. He's one of the guys supposedly fleeing the white genocide in South Africa. But on his Twitter account, Carl has made some, you know, some. Some not so flattering statements about Jews, about Israel. He said Jews are naturally untrustworthy. He. He posted a couple videos of sort of Jews and Christians clashing in Israel, sort of with the implication that this is kind of this Jewish oppression of Christians. And, you know, normally, you know, you're. You're welcome to kind of believe a lot of things in this country, but the new Trump administration standard is that if you have anti Semitic or anti Israel statements and you're trying to immigrate here in the past, at least, or at least for maybe people of a browner complexion, this has been a real issue.

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah, it's. So we're going to dig into all this in a minute, and at the end Please do stay with us because I'm going to mount a defense of Mr. Kleinhaus because I think it is important to say this isn't about him. Like this is, you know, if you are open to immigration, then you are open to all sorts of people coming to your country. And, and many of them are going to have views you disagree with. And if you, if you buy into immigration, like that's part of the deal. Right. And, and people who are immigrants have First Amendment protections, even if they are not citizens. And we'll talk about all that in the back half because what this is really about is about America. So you and I went crawling through Mr. Klein House's social media feed and it was kind of funny to me how much it looked like a generic MAGA feed. I mean, there's some stuff about South Africa in it. I would say it's about like a third to 40% maybe South Africa content. But most of it is just like Trump humping and Trump memes, a lot of Tesla worship. He's very worked up about vandalism of Teslas. This seems to be one of his top of mind concerns. Lots of memes, lots of Pam Bondi retweets talking about arrest numbers in Virginia of immigrants. Again, this guy is more in the weeds on American politics than, I gotta say, like 60% of American voters. Did that surprise you at all?

[Carl Kleinhaus]

Yeah, I mean, it's, it, it is interesting. I mean, on one hand, I do think he will fit in very well here in the United States for better or for worse. I mean, he seems very conversant in our culture war issues. Even when it was about South Africa, it would be like an AI picture of Trump playing for the South African.

[JVL]

Rugby team or something for the Springboks or something. Yeah.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

And so, I mean, he's very, I mean, he was posting, oh, you know, oh, I'm so mad about trans issues, stuff like that. So that, that was interesting. It's just sort of an interesting thing that he's so. He's so riled up and ready to slide into America, I guess. And so you can see why he would sort of jump this opportunity to immigrate here. On the other hand, I mean, he does have these things that, that, you know, at least for other people have, have proved to be issues that either get you barred from entry America or even deport it.

[JVL]

Yeah. So he just to finish filling out the, the picture for people among his, his tweets, he seems to be. He likes ufc, he likes Ultimate Fighting.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

It seems like he loves Slap fighting. I don't know if you saw. He attended some slap fights, which are kind of an off branch of ufc. I mean, that was gruesome stuff.

[JVL]

He is vaccine skeptical. Apparently. He, he's very Christian. A lot of Bible verses, lot of. Have you accepted Jesus? Lots of which, you know, I gotta say, big fan, big fan of that stuff. I love Jesus. Who doesn't? And that's when you then get into, get into some of the stuff with the Jews and it's, it's kind of something, I wouldn't say it seems like an obsession of his, but it's clearly something that's on his mind and it fits with like that sort of persecution complex, right? Like Christians are the ones being persecuted. And it's. Chris, all these other groups are out to get the Christians. It's, you know, there's, there's one retweet about things to know about these religions. One of them is not like the other. And it's, it's like Christians, Muslims and Jews. It's the Jews who.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

He's like, yeah, he said, or this thing he retweeted, said, you know, Jews believe Jesus is boiling an excrement in hell. And so you have this over and over. He seemed to get very exercised about the treatment of Christians in Jerusalem. And even on October 7, when the reports were just coming out about the attack, he said, you know, well, here's this video of the Jews spitting on Christians in Jerusalem.

[JVL]

And interestingly, another one of his preoccupations seems to be with Europe and with the terrible crimes being committed by North Africans, which is always code for Muslims. And so there's again, like, there's a little bit of. Janice, two. Two faces to this. So here's what's the reason this caught our attention. And again, you know, a group of 59 people. You, you take a random sampling of any 59 people, you're going to find somebody in there who's got a bunch of views that are, that are crazy. But the State Department has been in process of actively going and revoking immigration status for, say, graduate students who have authored a single op ed in the school paper that they viewed as anti Semitic, even though not anti Semitic, not having anything to do with that, but taking like real strict calipers on ideology to go after people and, and arrest them and throw them in jail and try to deport them in. The COVID the administration has been using for this is, it's anti Semitism. They're very, very concerned about anti Semitism. This seems to Be like a moment where the mask kind of slips a little bit and suggests. Well, I mean, not all anti Semites. You know, I mean, there are certain sub brands which are. Okay, I. If you get what I'm putting down. Right. I mean, that's.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

Yeah. I mean, I think the implication here, what we can draw from this is, as you said, I mean, it's not that this guy even himself is necessarily evil or that this whole group is, but that the administration, I think, has been much more willing to say, you know, if someone is a brown skin or perhaps Muslim, to say, you know, well, what can we possibly do to disqualify you, to deport you if you're already in the US but in this guy's case, I mean, he has comments that I think if these were made by a Muslim applicant, to immigrate here would absolutely be disqualifying. I mean, DHS has said that they are vetting even what may be legally, like, totally legal statements to make. But if they're anti Semitic or critical of Israel, that'll keep you out. I mean, in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, we know Marco Rubio had filed a document in court saying, look, yeah, I mean, his associations are probably legal, but because they are critical of Israel and anti Semitic, in our view, that goes against U.S. foreign policy. And I'm allowed to deport him based just on that. And certainly that is not the standard being applied in this case.

[JVL]

No. And here's where I do want to have a serious. Because it's not really funny. It's all just sort of darkly funny. There's a gallows humor aspect to this. But I do want to be serious for a minute because the guy is making an asylum claim saying that there is a white genocide going on in South Africa and that his life is in danger. And I don't know. I don't know anything about South Africa other than what I read in the paper. I'm. I'm willing to accept that as being possible. And if he's making a. An asylum claim and the US Government is willing to hear that, I'm totally willing to hear that, too. I think that's. That's fine. So we have a system to adjudicate these things for. And so it isn't the case that, like, wow, you know, throw this guy out. But it is the. Again, I just. The Trump administration doesn't quite get immigration, or they do, but the mask is slipping. And what they really want is, like, you know, white power. Because this is the thing about immigration As I said at the beginning, if you're open to immigration, then you're open to all sorts of people. People with different religions, people with different views, people have different skin colors, people have different jobs and outlooks on family life and all that. And you got to be okay with that. And if you're not, then you're doing something that's a little closer to like a eugenics project. And that I think is creepy as hell. And I, I just think the answer here should be like, you keep all these people. Like, the answer isn't to take Mr. Kleinhaus and ship him back. The answer is like, yeah, we respect First Amendment rights for everyone and we adjudicate fairly and completely claims of asylum for everyone. And we just accept that that's going to mean that some people are going to come into the country who aren't your cup of tea, no matter who you are. Right. If you're, no matter how liberal you are or conservative you are, like, there's going to be some people who come in who aren't your cup of tea and you live with that because that is literally the definition of America. I don't get the sense Marco Rubio is quite down with that anymore.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

I think that's right. I mean, they're selecting for a group that is majority Christian, certainly all white, and also right wing. I mean, if you're a group that, you know, white group, white people who say, oh, I can't fit in in South Africa, I think that you're more likely to be right wing. And, and that meanwhile, you know, we're, they're putting up all these bars for, for groups that I think are more likely to be left wing or Muslim or, you know, non white. And you know, that's, as you said, I mean, that's not what immigration is supposed to be about.

[JVL]

Yeah, and, and, and I gotta say that the thing that really grinds my gears and that that's even too flip a way to put it, the thing which I think is a deep moral stain on America is going out of your way to pull in people from South Africa who may or may not have valid asylum claims, while at the same time trying to actively get rid of Afghanis who put their lives on the line in, in an attempt to help America in America's wars of choice in Afghanistan. And that, that takes me to a place of like, real anger, you know, like it shouldn't be either, or you should be able to help all the people, but, but you damn sure should help the people who put their lives on the line for America out of. Out of the goodness of their hearts and as volunteers first. I don't know, does that grind you or do you have like.

[Carl Kleinhaus]

No, no, I. I completely agree. I mean, I mean, this is where the. The State Department made that. Made that comment that. That these people were. Were being welcomed because they're better at assimilation than. Than the Afghans. I mean, in the case of this gentleman we're talking about here, this guy who owns multiple mining companies, he has pictures with. With top South African politicians. So, I mean, it doesn't seem like this is a guy who's like, I have to flee South Africa at risk of my life, you know, certainly in comparison to people from Afghanistan.

[JVL]

Yeah. And that. That really gets right down to it. Right. When the. The. That mope from the State Department was asked by the. I think it was the BBC World Service reporter, you know, what, why asylum claims? Why refugee status for these people, but not people from Venezuela, not people from Afghanistan? He said very clearly, because, you know, they'll be able to assimilate easily.

[Will Sommer]

Some of the criteria are making sure that refugees did not pose any challenge to our national security and that they could be assimilated easily into our country.

[JVL]

You know, and I just think what a repugnant human being that asshole is. White nationalism for the win. Good luck, America.