() President Trump should have warned South African President Cyril Ramaphosa he would press the leader on alleged violence against white farmers rather than ambushing the visiting leader Wednesday during a televised Oval Office meeting, correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera says.

Instead, Rivera says, it was a Trump ambush reminiscent of the U.S. president’s Feb. 28 scolding of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a diplomatic meeting that went off the rails.

Observers say Trump’s claims of a “genocide” against white farmers in post-apartheid South Africa are not accurate. Rivera says there’s certainly hostility in some quarters against the so-called Afrikaners who are descended from white Europeans.

“It’s a clear play to some segment of his base that says, ‘Hey, listen, I’m for the white guys,’” Rivera said of Trump’s motives. “‘I’m also the watchdog taking care of white minorities around the world.’”

The Trump administration earlier this month brought a small number of white South Africans to the United States as refugees, part of what’s supposed to be a larger relocation effort.