![Tshidi Madia praised for 'mopping floor' with US reporter [video]](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesouthafrican.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F05%2FSA-journalist-Tshidi-Madia-has-been-praised-for-her-challenging-comments-to-a-US-reporter.jpg.optimal.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
Tshidi Madia praised for 'mopping floor' with US reporter [video]
Her comments come a day after SA President Cyril Ramaphosa's Oval Office meeting with Trump.
Last year, Madia was lauded for her interview with Jacob Zuma, in which she addressed mistruths of his political campaign.
A day after Ramaphosa and Trump's tense meeting, particularly about 'white genocide' and 'persecuted farmers,' made global headlines, Tshidi Madia was invited to share her comments with News Nation.
The US media platform – which hails itself as 'unbiased,' – questioned Tshidi about what was happening in South Africa. On Balance presenter Leland Vittert particularly brought up SA's delegation to the White House, and Trump's display of imagery and information about the 'targeted killings'.
Tshidi kicked off by labelling Trump's 'misinformation' campaign – supported by Pretoria-born Elon Musk, as a 'gimmick'.
She said, 'The issue is about what is being pedalled about South Africa. The startling truth of crime in South Africa was actually answered by everyone there. Is it targeted toward a certain group, is it ethnic cleansing? That's the question, based on what has been said about South Africa. [But] that's not a fact.
'The issue is falsehood. White people are not being targeted. Crime is experienced by everybody, not just white people.
Vittert went on to question Tshidi Madia on whether white people were being targeted 'disproportionally', whether white farmers were 'abandoning' their land and businesses, and Julius Malema's singing of Kill The Boer.
Tshidi mentioned that of the 49 Afrikaner 'refugees' who arrived in the US, none were farmers. She also attempted to explain the context of the Apartheid struggle song.
Tshidi also clapped back at claims Elon Musk had claimed that 'racist laws' – ie, BEE – had prevented his business, Starlink, from operating in SA.
She responded: 'So we are forced to undermine our transformative laws? We must be ok with a South Africa, where the majority are denied their land, and deprived of access to economic transformation? We must be ok with South Africa being labelled the most unequal country in the world and not try and do anything about it?'
On the X platform, Tshidi Madia's interview quickly became a trending topic.
Fellow reporter Redi Tlhabi posted: 'You were EXCELLENT here! Really sizzling. Not just your arguments, but your delivery and demeanour. You read the room and outplayed the anchor on his home-ground'.
Here's what others had to say…
@owensonO2: 'Her name is Matshidiso Tshidi Madia. Give her her flowers. #SAinUSA'.
@JerryBru007: 'Classic and predictable from the US – well done Tshidi for not taking their bullsh*t!'
@PetiteEbonyGirl: 'Tshidi Madia mopped the floor with his face '.
On his X account, News Nation's Leland Vittert responded to commentary about his interview with Tshidi Madia.
He posted: 'I don't think I have ever been so eloquently insulted'.
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 .
Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp , Facebook , X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
The National Dialogue at least has us debating whether a debate is needed
The National Dialogue has certainly elicited a dialogue, at the very least between those who consider the entire initiative to be a significant waste of taxpayers' money and those who argue that there is a need for a societal engagement regarding the socioeconomic problems vexing South Africa and in which the political process has so lamentably failed the country. Stephen Grootes contends that in the light of the failure of the established political process, if a National Dialogue 'can bring people back into formal structures first through the convention process, then into politics (through voting), then it would have succeeded'. Pierre de Vos writes that it is difficult not to conclude that the National Dialogue is 'an idiotic and self-indulgent scheme cooked up by decadent elites untethered from reality or greedy to share in the spoils of the lucrative consultancy work no doubt being generated by the jamboree'. At least there is a debate in the country about whether to have a debate. There is, however, a core question that the National Dialogue, arguably through the Eminent Persons Group, which has been appointed to pilot the National Dialogue, needs to answer, and urgently. Government failure Critics like De Vos are correct to point to the almost complete failure of the government over a long period (certainly from the moment Jacob Zuma assumed the presidency). There has been a sustained lack of delivery by government to deliver basic services to those most in need. There has been a marked increase in corruption, for example as documented in the Zondo Commission reports. There has been a failure to hold key participants in the series of nefarious activities that engulfed the country and stole crucial national resources to be held accountable to the law. The economic policy of government has produced no more than tepid GDP growth, as a result of which the country struggles to grow at more than 1% per annum. Unemployment constitutes, on the official figures, a third of the population who can work. Key institutions, save for Sars and the SA Reserve Bank, are generally dysfunctional. A National Dialogue takes place in circumstances where, in the very week that it commenced, an e-hailing driver was murdered and others brutally attacked at Maponya Mall, with very little likelihood that those who committed these crimes will be found and successfully prosecuted. The Chief of the South African National Defence Force toddles off to Iran to proclaim our friendship with that country in the very week when the Department of Trade and Industry is desperately trying the persuade the American government to reduce the tariffs which it has imposed on South Africa and which will have disastrous effects on our economy and hence employment. And the Minister of Defence, heroically reproducing her record as Education Minister, supports this trip. Corruption is of so gross a kind that the CEO of the Independent Development Trust can brazenly offer a journalist R60,000 in cash so that he will not publish an adverse article about her. The leaders of the National Dialogue need to tell the South African population how this dialogue will ensure that e-hailing drivers are not murdered, that those who perpetrate these murders are held accountable by the law, and that chief executive officers of important institutions behave with probity as opposed to brazen displays of corruption. How will a dialogue reverse the failure to deliver basic goods and services to those most in need? In short, how will the more than R500-million to be spent on this project ensure that the National Dialogue will transport us into a place that we have never been since the first few promising years of democracy dawned after 1994? There has been much talk about the precedent of the Congress of the People, which produced the Freedom Charter in 1955. But the Congress of the People at Kliptown took place after considerable political work had been done and in circumstances where the entire enterprise was designed to construct an alternative vision for a society which was then living under the horrors of apartheid. It produced a road map called the Freedom Charter, which continued to influence progressive politics for decades to come. By contrast, we now have a Constitution which sets out a framework for the development of a society based on freedom, equality and dignity for all. It demands accountable and transparent government which fulfils its obligations to provide basic social and economic goods to the population. If that was not enough, there is a National Development Plan collecting dust and a comprehensive report from the Harvard Growth Lab, which clearly indicates what is required to ensure that South Africa vindicates the vision which was initially articulated in the Constitution. In short, what is the National Dialogue going to tell us that we do not already know? Will it ensure that Cabinet ministers like Thembi Simelane, the Minister of Human Settlements (a not unimportant portfolio), are finally held to account for a whole series of damning allegations which require proper public ventilation? Will the National Dialogue ensure that the Chief of the SANDF cannot simply, on his own frolic, seek to undermine delicate negotiations taking place to save the economy? Will the national dialogue produce more reliable water supplies for the Johannesburg Municipality, collapsing as it is under decades of municipal incompetence? Will it reduce the appalling levels of sexual violence in our country? The short answer is that there is a welter of considered research which indicates the direction that the country should take in order, for example, that inclusive economic growth can be generated to benefit the entire population. Do we need a National Dialogue to know that if the national government ensures that land it owns could be used for dealing with the urban housing crisis, we can begin to change the demographic character of our cities? Take, for example, Cape Town: the mayor of Cape Town has complained often that if the military properties at Wingfield and Ysterplaat could be handed over to the municipality, thousands of houses could be constructed and significant dents could be made in the challenge to redress homelessness, as well as recrafting the character of our cities. If the National Dialogue promotes the possibility of improved political awareness and an impetus to change the nature of our present political system, in which political parties have failed the country, then it may well serve a purpose. But if the hope is that somehow this dialogue is going to persuade the government to do that which has been known for decades and in which there has only been failure, then it is truly a waste of time and of taxpayers' money. Last weekend, Daily Maverick published the views of its readers as to what is required from government. It covered all the key challenges that government has consistently failed to address. How will a National Dialogue, even as it is led by a group of most distinguished South Africans, ensure that government suddenly converts itself into serving 60 million South Africans and addresses these challenges which are common cause? There is an ironic feature to all of this. The national dialogue has been called by the President. The President's record shows that he has been meticulous in his failure to engage the country in a dialogue other than by way of his family meetings, in which no questions are put to him. The President never subjects himself to radio and television interviews in which journalists, on behalf of the country, can put a range of difficult questions to him to ensure that the public gains a grasp of whether he can provide coherent reasons for government's failures. He is, in short, the very model of a 'non-dialogue' President. Yet he wants us to believe that this National Dialogue will turbocharge fundamental economic and political change in South Africa. Really! DM
Daily Maverick
8 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Trump tells Zelenskiy U.S. would help with Ukraine's security in a peace deal
Zelenskiy accuses Russia of attacks to undermine Trump talks Trump pressures Ukraine to compromise, warns against NATO aspirations European leaders seek strong security guarantees for Ukraine By Andrea Shalal and Max Hunder But he also suggested to reporters that he no longer believed reaching a ceasefire was a necessary prerequisite for striking a peace agreement, backing a position staked out by Russian President Vladimir Putin and opposed by Zelenskiy and most European leaders. The two leaders took questions from the media in the Oval Office before meeting in private, six months after their last appearance there descended into disaster when Trump and Vice President JD Vance upbraided Zelenskiy in an extraordinary apublic dressing-down. This time, Trump and Zelenskiy struck a far more convivial tone, despite the U.S. president's movement toward Russia in recent days following his summit in Alaska with Putin. And Zelenskiy was backed by the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and NATO, who traveled to Washington to demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine and push for strong security guarantees for the country in any post-war settlement. 'When it comes to security, there's going to be a lot of help,' Trump told reporters, adding that European countries would be involved. 'They are a first line of defence because they're there, but we'll help them out.' Trump greeted Zelenskiy outside the White House, shaking his hand and expressing delight at Zelenskiy's black suit, a departure from his typical military clothes. When a reporter asked Trump what his message was to the people of Ukraine, he said twice, 'We love them.' Zelenskiy thanked him, and Trump put his hand on Zelenskiy's back in a show of affection before the two men went inside to the Oval Office. Trump is pressing for a quick end to Europe's deadliest war in 80 years, and Kyiv and its allies worry he could seek to force an agreement on Russia's terms after the president on Friday in Alaska rolled out the red carpet – literally – for Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Trump said he liked the concept of a ceasefire, but they could work on a peace deal while the fighting continued. 'I wish they could stop, I'd like them to stop,' he said. 'But strategically that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other.' He also said he believes Putin wants to end the war and that he hopes the three leaders can soon organize a trilateral meeting. Putin has not committed to such a meeting, though Zelenskiy said he is ready to sit down. 'We need to stop this war, to stop Russia and we need support – American and European partners,' Zelenskiy told reporters. The European leaders were to meet with Trump later on Monday, according to the White House. Such a high-level gathering at the White House on such short notice appears to be unprecedented in recent times. Russian attacks overnight on Ukrainian cities killed at least 10 people, in what Zelenskiy called a 'cynical' effort to undermine talks. Trump has rejected accusations that the Alaska summit had been a win for Putin, who has faced diplomatic isolation since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 'I know exactly what I'm doing, and I don't need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years, and were never able to do a thing to stop them,' Trump wrote on social media. Trump's team has said there will have to be compromises on both sides to end the conflict. But the president himself has put the burden on Zelenskiy to end the war, saying Ukraine should give up hopes of getting back Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, or of joining the NATO military alliance. PUTIN'S PROPOSALS Zelenskiy has already all but rejected the outline of Putin's proposals from the Alaska meeting. Those include handing over the remaining quarter of its eastern Donetsk region, which is largely controlled by Russia. Ukrainian forces are deeply dug into the region, whose towns and hills serve as a crucial defensive zone to stymie Russian attacks. Any concession of Ukrainian territory would have to be approved by a referendum. Ukraine and its allies have taken heart from some developments, including Trump's apparent willingness to provide post-settlement security guarantees for Ukraine. A German government spokesperson said on Monday that European leaders would seek more details on that in the talks in Washington. The war, which began with a full-scale invasion by Russia in February 2022, has killed or wounded more than a million people from both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts, and destroyed wide swaths of the country. Putin himself faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children, adding controversy to Trump's decision to invite him to Alaska. Russia has been slowly grinding forward on the battlefield, pressing its advantages in men and firepower. Putin says he is ready to continue fighting until his military objectives are achieved. Officials in Ukraine said a drone attack on a residential complex in the northern city of Kharkiv killed at least seven people, including a toddler and her 16-year-old brother. Strikes in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia killed three people, they said. Russia says it does not deliberately target civilians, and the Defense Ministry's daily report did not refer to any strike on Kharkiv. Local resident Olena Yakusheva said the attack hit an apartment block that was home to many families. 'There are no offices here or anything else, we lived here peacefully in our homes,' she said. Ukraine's military said on Monday that its drones had struck an oil pumping station in Russia's Tambov region, leading to the suspension of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline.
Daily Maverick
9 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
After the Bell: New reform tracker helps answer the question, ‘Will SA be okay?'
Finally, we are getting a live report card to help us answer this question. Last week, I was asked to be MC at the two launches of the Business Leadership SA Reform Tracker. It has a rather grand title. But, unlike so many other names in the economic and political space, it does what it says on the tin. It is tracking our reforms. Not quite minute by minute, but not far off. As someone who identifies as a 'journalist' and watches everything that happens as much as I can, I'm often asked certain questions by people I bump into, or audiences I speak in front of. The questions are wide-ranging, from 'who should I vote for' to 'should I emigrate', to 'will our economy start to grow now that…' I could go on. But in reality, they're the same question. Everyone who asks me one of those questions is asking something much more fundamental. They're asking, really: 'Will South Africa be okay?' It was a question summed up incredibly well by my old journalistic colleague and friend, Jan-Jan Joubert. He wrote a very well-researched answer and published it as a book. There is something almost peculiar to the South African middle class about this question. I don't think people in New Zealand or, dare I say it this particular Monday, Australia ask themselves this. Or people in the UK or Spain — despite the fact that in both those countries there are serious economic and political problems. But, considering the era of State Capture we have come from, I think it's fully understandable. I mean, look around. In Johannesburg, the mayor blames the DA for the state of the city while he himself has not appointed a finance head, or someone to actually manage the roads. That pothole that you see twice a day? There is actually no one in charge of fixing that right now. Our economy is still growing incredibly slowly, and it seems that people are putting more energy into arguing about the definition of employment than actually making changes that will result in more jobs. Just this weekend we saw a liar, someone who was central to the Guptas, who has been able to use the Hawks to have his ex-wife literally locked up in jail, still mouthing off about the state of the ANC? Malusi Gigaba should be in court. Not being given interview after interview as the chairperson of a portfolio committee in Parliament. But as we all know, there are virtually no Zondo prosecutions. And institutions such as Transnet are still battling to recover from State Capture. Progress However, it's important to note that there is progress. Finally, we are getting a live report card to help us answer the question: 'Will South Africa be okay?' Last week, I was asked to be MC at the two launches of the Business Leadership South Africa Reform Tracker. It has a rather grand title. But, unlike so many other names in the economic and political space, it does what it says on the tin. It is tracking our reforms. Not quite minute by minute, but not far off. Now, when I was at school, my reports were written in quite dry, dull text. They were very different from my tests, in which red was a prominent feature. Here, you get red, yellow and green. So at a glance, you can see how we are doing. But you can also click on each little tile and read what has been written about that sector. It might be that there is progress but still work to do; the story might be a lot more complicated than a single colour can indicate. And, wonderfully, there is also a way for you, perhaps as someone working in one of these sectors, to send some feedback. You might know that something has changed, or that in fact there has been more progress than the tracker is showing. Now, as a journalist, it's tempting to look for the red and start to get a little stroppy with a few politicians. Journalistic instincts But Dr Stuart Theobald, the founder and chairperson at Krutham who put the whole thing together, tells me that we should just wait a little before people like me go back to our journalistic instincts. He acknowledges that, yes, some reforms have stopped because of political problems, or opposition. And some have just failed. But some have been stopped deliberately, because the reform no longer makes sense. In other words, yes it's stopped — but for a good reason. So, if you are interested, it does make sense to actually go a little deeper into each sector, just to see how things really are. I know that one of the reasons you really read this is because you are searching for an answer to that question: 'Will South Africa be okay?' I mean, there is a lot to be worried about. Just as there is in the US, or China, or many, many other places right now. It might be worth just checking in with this tracker from time to time. Perhaps put it on your browser dashboard or something.
