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PBS News / YouTube, Facebook
Exclusive: Trump Shared Racist, Flat-Earth Facebook Account With South African President
Editor's Note: This article contains descriptions of racially offensive imagery and language. Some of the content has been translated from Afrikaans using translation tools.
In a bizarre and troubling move, Trump recently shared a Facebook post with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa that originated from a fringe South African account that posts racist imagery and flat Earth conspiracies.
Trump holding up a Facebook post "article"
PBS News / YouTube
The account, discovered by MeidasTouch's review of high resolution photos from the event, is run by a man named Paul Hattingh of South Africa who spreads white nationalist narratives, hateful imagery, and promotes theological interpretations of the Bible to justify a cosmology that rejects a spinning globe Earth.
Trump handing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa a stack of articles
PBS News / YouTube
During his meeting, Trump held up Hattingh's Facebook post from a collection of "articles" that Trump shared as part of his larger narrative attempting to legitimize the debunked claim that white South African farmers are being systematically murdered in a state-backed genocide—a conspiracy theory long discredited.
What makes Trump's sharing of the post especially disturbing is the origin: a Facebook account filled with offensive imagery and extremist rhetoric.
Paul Hattingh
One AI image posted to Hattingh's account depicts a terrified Ramaphosa entering Trump's "White Supremacy House." Hattingh has several posts hoping that Trump would confront Ramaphosa during his visit to the White House for a reckoning.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh's posts contain multiple AI-generated images that mock President Ramaphosa, depicting him with green skin, frog-like limbs, and in some cases being boiled alive by Trump. One image shows Ramaphosa dancing in a court jester outfit while holding U.S. dollars.
Another one of Hattingh's post displays the South African flag soaked in blood with a skull-and-crossbones emoji and the caption, “blood everywhere, South Africa is burning.”
Paul Hattingh
The Trump-shared account also mocked beachgoers in KwaZulu-Natal with the line, “lekker in die stront swem julle!” (“enjoy swimming in the shit!”), paired with an image of white people covered in mud at a music festival—an apparent racial insult implying that proximity to Africans on the beach will make white people dirty. Throughout the 20th century in apartheid South Africa, swimming pools and beaches were heavily policed and segregated to prevent racial mixing.
Paul Hattingh
The account also posted a racist AI caricature of a chimpanzee wearing a swim suit and shared the caption: “Baie liefielyfie op SA strande hierdie jaar” (“Lots of sweethearts on South African beaches this year”). The hateful post implies that African woman are ape-like.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh also posted AI images of Africans with exaggerated facial features such as big, bulging eyes, huge noses, large lips, and crooked teeth. Depicting Africans with exaggerated physical features in a cartoonish manner perpetuates harmful racial stereotypes and is a form of racism rooted in colonial and minstrel traditions.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh also used a similar image to boast that he was back from a Facebook suspension. Trump is relying on this hateful account that was suspended from Facebook to justify his attacks on another country.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh has also shared content from far right white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk, who rejects MLK as a bad guy. The Fuentes clip shared by Hattingh argued that descendants of White Europeans have superior DNA over other racial groups.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh is also a big fan of Trump and has posted several times about seeing him as a voice for white people in South Africa. One post references Trump's anti-Haitian pet-eating hoax and depicts a cat granting Trump "9 lives" as a reward.
Paul Hattingh
Hattingh also posted a meme of a bearded Trump wearing a Superman-like costume. For Hattignh, Trump fits right in to his own hateful worldview.
Paul Hattingh
The Trump-promoted account also pushes flat Earth cosmology, asserting that the Earth is not a spinning planet but a flat, immovable surface under a solid dome.
Paul Hattingh
Hattigh rejects a spinning, round Earth and outer space. In one post, Hattingh states:
“You say no verse describes the earth as flat or round. But Scripture is not silent. It is simply not written in scientific code — it speaks with divine clarity, for those who honor the voice of the Creator above the voices of men. …And that Word declares a created world, with a fixed earth, a solid firmament above, and His throne beyond it — not a spinning ball in vacuum space.”
In another post, the Trump fan expanded on his flat Earth beliefs:
“No, the sun and moon are not ‘flat’ like the earth – they are light bearers with specific shapes and routes, tied into the expanse. But the earth is unique – she is the footstool of YHWH, the center of His creation, and she is firm and immovable. The sun, moon and stars are servants of times, seasons and light – not centralized massive spheres as modern astronomy teaches.”
The same account also rejects traditional Christian messaging, the type of messaging that Bible salesman Trump leans into. Hatting rejects the name "Jesus" as coming from Rome, declares the cross a pagan symbol "tied to Babylon and sun worship," and rejects Christmas as a satanic holiday,
These views represent a fusion of conspiracy ideology, fringe intolerance, and racial grievance that’s increasingly visible on the outer edges of far-right movements globally. The fact that Trump would choose to share a Facebook account that welcomes hateful, anti-African sentiment speaks volumes and raises questions on the quality of information both feeding this White House and coming out of it.
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