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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. Welcome him back. Senior distinguished fellow at the center for American Progress. He was the ambassador to South Africa during the Obama administration. He's had a bunch of other prominent roles in the Democratic Party. It's Patrick Gaspard. How you doing, man?
- [00:13]
B
Hey, man. Good to be on.
- [00:15]
A
Tim, we're going to keep this tight because I'm pulling you away from that next playoffs game. All right, man. Only for you and Bulwark, Tim, thank you, man. Well, I really appreciate it, and the folks will appreciate it, because if our listeners and viewers are anything like me watching the scene in the Oval Office and you're like, I know this is bullshit. I know that there's some iota of truth here, right? That there's, like, some, you know, obviously there's racial conflict in South Africa. It's obviously gotten a million times better since the battle days. But, like, but we know this. The President's lying. We know he's bullying this guy. But, like, what help us, like, separate the kind of BS from the reality of what we saw today.
- [00:56]
B
So thank you for, like, unpacking it that way. Not only do we know that these are, like, these allegations are not factually true, all of us know that Donald Trump knows that these allegations aren't factually true. Right. That's just the way this guy rolls this. This is performing a trifecta for him, Tim. One, he gets to kind of, like, speak to his domestic political audience in the US that loves this kind of racial polarization stuff, and this Donald Trump is saving the white race politics that he loves to play. Two, you and I right now are not having a conversation about prices going up at Walmart. We're not talking about the Republican budgets going to slash all these people off of Medicaid. And three, he's also doing a little bit of a grift game here, right? Because Elon Musk, his. His. His BFF was in the Oval Office today, and Musk is trying to get a deal in South Africa to get starlink in. So. So all three of these things are at play now, separating fact from fiction. Yeah. South Africa has challenges with, With. With race, as. As does most of the planet. There's been a. A pretty fraught history there. But the reality is that black and white South Africans are working closely with one another towards a new future in that country. And tragically, now that we're several decades removed from apartheid, there's still this extraordinary economic discrepancy there in the country and disparities between blacks and whites, whites that represent about 7% of the population in South Africa now still control and own almost 70% of the private land in South Africa. Those Africana farmers that he's going, that Trump is going on and on about, they have amassed farmland that represents about half the geography of the actual country right now. Still to this day, white South Africans, who again are about 7% of the population, represent only 2% of all the homicides in all of South Africa, despite the propaganda video and all the stuff that Trump was throwing out there today. Last thing I'll say, Tim, is no, there are extraordinary leaders in the Africana community who understand that the historic advantages that they've had in education outcomes and economic outcomes, in security outcomes, and they're doing all they can to turn around the fraught history of South Africa. And they're doing it, you know, despite a right wing fringe that's in the country called Afro Forum that are in, are making common cause with, you know, that, that guy Tucker Carlson with musk and so many other kind of fringe actors here in the US So I today I'm thinking about the dignity of Ramaphosa in that horrible room and I'm thinking about some of my Africana friends who are trying to do the right thing every single day in South Africa.
- [03:53]
A
Yeah, that's tough. I mean, look, and there's again, everything's a tragedy. This is not to minimize anything, but just the Washington Post said this, 12 people were killed on farms in 2024 in a period where there were 6900 murders in South Africa. So, like, look, it's just, it's a country that's got challenges and it's violent and they're trying to get better. But like, the idea of this is a genocide is crazy. So you mentioned your friends are the white Africaners that are trying to do good work. On the other side of that, the other video, as we're trying to separate fact from fiction here, the other video that Trump showed, he ambushes them with the stupid, you know, reality TV show today. And he's like, he shows up this video of a guy shouting about killing the South African farmers.
- [04:36]
B
Kill the bars. Kill the boys.
- [04:37]
A
Yeah, kill the boars. And he's like, this is your man, this is your party. You know, to the president and like, you know, my buddy Peter Hamby, who was on the pod last Friday, who spent some time in South Africa, doesn't have your level of expertise, but he's like, man, this is, he's texting me, he's like, look, this is a minor party. This is not even. And it's not even the party in the coalition with the president.
- [04:56]
B
Peter knows his stuff. Not only is it a minor party, but the figure who was on that video, Julius Maleva, and as somebody who was kicked out of the ANC by Cyril Ramaphosa, they defeated him in election. They kicked him out when he used to be a youth leader in the anc. And it kicked him out specifically because he was corrupt and he was spreading these, like, racially violent rhetoric in the country. So he's the fringe of the fringe. He actually would get along really well with Donald Trump and some of these. And some of these folks. Yeah. Inconsequential figure who is dangerous because of his rhetoric, but has been contained by the ANC and their partners in government.
- [05:35]
A
One more thing on the South African side of this and then we can, we can rant about Trump a little more. It's like, what, why, what was the rationale like? Why did he come like, is it just reliant on us with trade? And you had to deal. You were in a lot of these rooms dealing with South Africa. What is the relationship bringing them that he felt like he had to do this.
- [05:53]
B
So when I was ambassador in South Africa, we negotiated a trade deal called the African Growth and Opportunity act that usually gets renewed for like five year periods, for it impacts the 51 nations in sub Saharan Africa. But President Obama renewed it for a decade and then it was re upped again and extended under Biden. It is coming to its conclusion now under Trump at the end of this year. South Africa needs to renegotiate that agreement. There are billions of dollars at sticks. Some estimates are about $14 billion in trade. There's a vibrant automobile manufacturing industry in South Africa and they sent like last year alone about 65,000 vehicles that were built in South Africa. GM has a plant there. Chrysler used to have a plant there. Mercedes has a plant. Volkswagen has a plant. They build these. They send them to the US and down the supply chain. There are American manufacturers that benefit from this as well. It's a huge deal. There are also hundreds of millions of dollars of healthcare support at stake. Tragically, one out of five South African adults have HIV positive status. Republican and Democratic administrations together have worked to stand up a program called PEPFAR that's led to really building up some foundation for the South African healthcare system, usually hugely consequential. Trump has pulled back all of those resources and that partnership on health care that helped to contain things like Ebola. Etcetera, in the past, and they're hoping to be able to revive that partnership again. So, huge deal for South Africa and all the American companies that are in South Africa.
- [07:35]
A
Yeah. And we've seen huge cuts to that far with, you know, it's, it's cruel.
- [07:41]
B
People who are on treatment now can't get their medication. Young people who are imperiled if they don't get access to care. It's pretty dangerous and awful and cruel stuff.
- [07:55]
A
Fucking pissed me off so bad. Makes me sick. Just back to the Trump rationale and all this. So, sure, as you laid out, kind of three reasons at the top. There's the distraction element, there are the other strategic elements. I do want to focus, though, on the racial side of this because I was posting about this on social media earlier and that's kind of what started our conversation offline. And it was like, like, to me, it is so preposterous that last week Trump goes to Saudi Arabia and he gives this speech and all of the Republican, everybody, all the MAGA types, everybody is gassing up. This speech is like, this is a huge sea change in how America does foreign policy. We're not gonna do what those old naive Republicans and Democrats, the Bushes and the Obamas, we're not gonna do this stuff where we pretend we care about human rights and values. All we're going to do is we're going to get ours. It's going to be transactional. We're moving away from that old way. So I don't care if the Saudi Arabian or Qatari government enslaves people or imprisons people wrongly.
- [08:57]
B
I don't care if MBS takes a chainsaw to a reporter.
- [09:01]
A
Right? Right. We're not going to care about any of that. We're going to go for it. And then eight, five days later, we're in the White House and he's lecturing the President of South Africa about the plight of, of these white farmers. It's like the whole world, all of this horrible stuff happening all over the world in Afghanistan, to black folks across Africa and the Middle east. In Venezuela, we're kicking out the Venezuelans. It's like the only group we care about is the white South Africans. Like, give me a fucking break. Give me a break. Like, that is. It's so obvious what they're doing here.
- [09:35]
B
It's grotesque. You can't even call it hypocrisy. That's not what it is. It is just nothing. Nothing short of being a racial arsonist. That's what Donald Trump is. And that's the politics that they're playing here on this issue. You're right. He had this whole performance in Saudi Arabia last week. And you know, let's not forget that this is the same president who's standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the US Was prepared to take over Gaza, move all the Palestinians out of it and turn into beachfront property. Right? And you know, I think that's called ethnic cleansing. But, but here he is like promoting this ridiculous lie about genocide in South Africa to white people as if he has like some passion about it. He is playing a game to a base, a fringe base in the United States that gets all frothy whenever he stands himself up as the last best protector of white people on the planet. Right. They, they really do like, buy into this replacement theory thing, this white holocaust thing, and he loves the grievous politics of it. He stokes it on social media, as does Elon Musk, and he uses it for his broad politics. So it's, it's grotesque. It's grotesque. You know, you know, if I, if I, if I can, I know, I know that you got, you got to cut this off.
- [10:54]
A
You're cooking.
- [10:54]
B
Look, when I was, when I was a young activist, when I was 19 years old and protesting against apartheid in this country, I was so inspired when I saw young Republican Congress members like Mitch McConnell. Yes, he was young once. Mitch McConnel, who stood up and overturned the veto pen of Ronald Reagan on sanctions against South Africa. Mitch McConnell said, My President, who I love, is on the wrong side of history. We're going to do the right thing. At this moment, it's astonishing to see that Republican Party, relatively short period of time later, getting on bended knee for, for somebody who is a racial arsonist in the White House and is using foreign policy, our soft power, our relationships in ways that personally benefits him, and stokes the worst kind of hatred and polarization and enmity across the planet. It's astounding thing to see their complicity and their silence in the face of all of this. It's dangerous.
- [11:53]
A
Yeah, that's dangerous. It is maddening. I'll let you, we'll leave it there, let you get back to the game you made. You said your piece, we let you cook. And everybody, all folks, know this, but I appreciate you on this, man. It's a. Important that we, everybody get educated because there is, there's just a lot of smoke and mirrors today. There's a lot of smoking mirrors. And even for educated people that are trying to follow this stuff. It's, like, you know, tough to wade through. So I appreciate you coming on, and we'll be. We'll be staying in touch, man. We'll see you soon.
- [12:17]
B
Thank you for using your voice on this the way you did today. Appreciate it.
- [12:20]
A
All right. I appreciate it, brother. Everybody subscribe to the feed. We'll see you soon.