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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and U.S. President Donald Trump look on as a video plays in the Oval Office on May 21. Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images.


** Trump’s South Africa ‘Genocide’ Claims
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During a May 21 Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, President Donald Trump played a video that he said showed “burial sites” for a thousand white farmers — the victims of what he has called a genocide — along a roadside in South Africa. But as Staff Writer Saranac Hale Spencer wrote ([link removed]) , the video showed a 2020 demonstration bringing attention to the issue of violence against farmers of all races in South Africa.

Pointing to the video of a rural highway dotted on each side with white crosses, Trump said, “These are burial sites, right here. Burial sites — over a thousand of white farmers."

Sara explained that these crosses weren't graves, but rather part of a demonstration following the August 2020 murder of Glen and Vida Rafferty, who had been killed during a robbery at their farmhouse in Normandien, a rural area about 200 miles southeast of Johannesburg. The crosses were meant to memorialize and draw attention to the many farmers who have been killed over the years.

As Deputy Director Rob Farley wrote ([link removed]) last week, Trump had claimed there was “a genocide" against white farmers in the country and that's why the U.S. was accepting white South Africans as refugees, while suspending all other refugee admissions. But experts told Rob that Trump was misapplying that term.

“Yes, white farmers are being killed in South Africa,” political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, co-director of the Observatory of Political Radicalism at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, told Rob via email. “However, there is nothing like a ‘white genocide.’ And the issue needs to be seen in the broader context of a country plagued by crime and gang activity.”

Most of the violent acts against farmers are committed during robberies in a country where most of the wealth and land post-apartheid are still owned by a relatively small white minority, experts said. And while police statistics don't provide a breakdown by race, there have been about 50 farm murders per year over the last several years -- less than 1% of all murders in the country.

“Murder victimization is far more correlated to class, gender and location than race,” Lizette Lancaster, of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, said.

Trump's meeting with Ramaphosa came a week after the U.S. accepted the first white South African refugees. Ramaphosa pushed back against the claim that there is a white genocide happening in the country, which prompted Trump to play the video featuring the 2020 demonstration.

Trump later claimed, “When they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”

In the case of the Rafferty murders in 2020, three men have been convicted and are serving time in prison.

For more, read Sara's story: "Trump Video Doesn’t Show ‘Burial Sites’ in South Africa ([link removed]) ." And Rob's: "Trump’s South Africa ‘Genocide’ Spin ([link removed]) ."
HOW WE KNOW
When several Democrats claimed that a Republican legislative proposal that makes changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act would leave 13.7 million without health insurance, we consulted a preliminary Congressional Budget Office analysis. The CBO said the legislation “would reduce the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034.” The Democrats’ higher number includes a CBO estimate for insurance losses under a separate matter — the scheduled expiration of expanded ACA tax credits. The fate of those tax credits is still up in the air. Read more: “Democrats Exaggerate Estimated Impact of GOP Bill on Uninsured ([link removed]) .”
FEATURED FACTS
The latest guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of medical experts, advise against PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, testing for prostate cancer in men who are 70 and older. The 2018 recommendations, which are in the process of being updated, were based on finding with “moderate certainty” that the potential benefits “do not outweigh the expected harms.”
For men ages 55 to 69, the USPSTF said the decision to get a PSA test “should be an individual one,” and recommended that men discuss the pros and cons of testing with a clinician. Read more: “Trump, Allies Spread Unfounded Claims About Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis.”
SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE WEEK

In his appearance before the House Appropriations Committee on May 14, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misleadingly claimed that Europe doesn’t vaccinate children against chickenpox because a study shows that when you do, “you get shingles in older people.”

As we explained, that is a theoretical concern, but studies have not borne that out. And parts of Europe do vaccinate kids, including Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain. The United Kingdom is slated to begin chickenpox vaccinations in January 2026. (See our story "RFK Jr.’s Misleading Line on the Chickenpox Vaccine ([link removed]) " for more information.)

On social media, we highlighted our story in a vertical video, which runs just over 1 minute. It got over 2 million views across all platforms. (Click the image below to see the video.)

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** Wrapping Up
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Here's what else we've got for you this week:
* Trump’s Growing Exaggeration of U.S. Investments ([link removed])
President Trump has repeatedly touted the value of announced financial investments in the U.S. and taken credit for attracting them. He started out citing $3 trillion in investments and, four months later, was claiming totals of more than $10 trillion. It’s unclear where, exactly, he’s getting these totals. But they appear to be an exaggeration of pledges to invest made by various companies and countries.



Y lo que publicamos en español ([link removed]) (English versions are accessible in each story):
* Memorando de inteligencia socava el argumento migratorio de Trump ([link removed])
Cuando el Washington Post informó a través de fuentes anónimas que una evaluación de inteligencia del gobierno concluyó que el gobierno venezolano no estaba dirigiendo la migración de miembros de la banda Tren de Aragua hacia Estados Unidos, Tulsi Gabbard, la directora de inteligencia nacional, desestimó tales informes y dijo que aquellos “detrás de esta filtración ilegal de inteligencia clasificada” habían “torcido y manipulado [la información] para transmitir el hallazgo exactamente opuesto”. Una copia redactada del memorando muestra que lo que informó el Post era correcto.

* La posible fuente de la afirmación falsa de Trump sobre la gasolina a 2 dólares ([link removed])
El precio promedio nacional de un galón de gasolina regular sigue siendo superior a 3 dólares, y ningún estado tiene un precio promedio por debajo de 2,60 dólares. Sin embargo, desde mediados de abril de 2025, el presidente Donald Trump ha afirmado falsamente, en repetidas ocasiones, que los precios de la gasolina “alcanzaron 1,98 dólares por galón” en varios estados. Ahora podríamos conocer el origen de sus afirmaciones.

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