Trump blasts ‘terrible reporter' at NBC for asking about Qatar jet during South African meeting
Donald Trump raged at NBC News' Peter Alexander on Wednesday for asking about the luxury plane the Qatari government is gifting the United States, calling him a 'terrible reporter' and a 'jerk' for not addressing the 'genocide' of white South African farmers, who Trump has given refugee status to.
During a bilateral Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump ambushed his guest with a video presentation of left-wing opposition leader Julius Malema shouting the controversial anti-apartheid slogan 'Kill the Boer!' The president also claimed that the clip revealed a mass grave site of roughly a thousand white Afrikaners, whom Trump insisted had been slain in race-based land confiscations.
According to CNN, meanwhile, the footage of the 'burial' that played in the Oval Office was actually just a political monument that is meant to commemorate the deaths of white farmers.
Following the minutes-long video, which saw the South African leader awkwardly ask Trump if he could provide more information and locations of the gravesites, Alexander then brought up the $400 million 'palace in the sky' that the Qatari royal family has offered to the president.
The proposed gift has prompted ethics experts to claim that it could be considered a foreign bribe and a violation of the Emoluments Clause. Meanwhile, the president has repeatedly defended the gift, claiming he would be 'stupid' to turn it down.
'Mr. President, the Department of Defense announced it would accept a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One,' Alexander began before the president cut him off.
'What are you talking about?!' Trump huffed while Ramaphosa added that he would like to 'respond' to Trump's presentation and his claims about the 'genocide' of white farmers.
'You ought to get out of here. What does this have to do with a Qatari jet?' the incensed president continued. 'They are giving the United States Air Force a jet, and it's a great thing. We are talking about a lot of other things!' As has been his habit when confronted with questions he doesn't like from legacy media outlets, especially organizations he's targeted for investigations and lawsuits, the president personally attacked Alexander and his network.
'NBC is trying to get off the subject of what you just saw,' Trump fumed. 'You are a terrible reporter. Number one, you don't have what it takes to be a reporter. You are not smart enough.'
After once again praising Qatar for doing a 'very nice thing' in giving the United States a luxury jumbo plane, the president then called for NBC, its parent company Comcast, and its chief Brian Roberts to 'be investigated' for its news coverage.
'They are so terrible, the way you run that network, and you are a disgrace,' he griped. 'No more questions from you!'
Trump, meanwhile, would keep coming back to his anger over Alexander's question, at one point calling him a 'jerk' and pretending he didn't know his name while going on about the white genocide conspiracy theory. At one point, after Trump again grumbled about Alexander focusing on the 'fake news' about the Qatari 747 rather than the supposed mass murder of white farmers in South Africa, Ramaphosa turned to the president and said: 'I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you.'
'I wish you did,' Trump reacted.
Meanwhile, Trump has already threatened to sue another news outlet over the way it has covered the Qatari jet.
'Why doesn't Chairman Bob Iger do something about ABC Fake News, especially since I just won $16,000,000 based on the Fake and Defamatory reporting of Liddle' George Slopadopolus,' the president declared this week. 'Everyone, including their lawyers, has been told that ABC must not say that Qatar is giving ME a FREE Boeing 747 Airplane, because they are not.'
Trump added: 'Instead, and as Fake News ABC fully knows and understands, this highly respected country is donating the plane to the United States Air Force/ Defense Department, AND NOT TO ME… ABC Fake News is one of the WORST.'
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