Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to end all future funding to South Africa claiming that in the country, “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly.” Trump went on to announce a new specialized refugee program which would facilitate the entry of White South Africans — Afrikaners — into the U.S., as a result of “government sponsored race-based discrimination.”

It’s left many wondering exactly why Trump has taken up this new interest in South Africa? The answer to this may lie in a group of white billionaires and political insiders from apartheid-era South Africa that have embedded themselves within Donald Trump’s orbit, a group which includes the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, the billionaire Peter Thiel, Trump donor and official David Sacks, and well known South African golfer Gary Player. 

Chris McGreal is a journalist with The Guardian and a former South Africa correspondent with the paper through the final years of Apartheid. He joins the show to unpack the throughline connecting apartheid South Africa to the US today.  

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