Apologise, Ruto did not hold White House meetings with top US officials

Major news houses in Nairobi have egg on their face for trumpeting flat lies about Deputy President William Ruto’s visit last week to the United States.

The Nation, Standard, and Star all reported bits of the loudest two lies. One, that Ruto visited the White House. Two, that he met with the US National Security Council.

Neither happened. We’ll show you in a bit why we know.

The debacle started by media regurgitating Ruto’s itinerary from his campaign ahead of the US tour.

“Details of DP Ruto’s 10-day visit to US and UK revealed,” said a Standard heading on February 24.

The story by Allan Mungai said, “Ruto will hold a discussion with Jake Sullivan US Government National Security Council (NSC) Advisor, US Defense officials as well as the State Department.”

Then, the Daily Nation reporting on Ruto’s arrival in the United States on February 28 repeated that he would “meet officials of the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as the Government National Security Council (NSC) Advisor.”

Reporter Mercy Simiyu did not lean into the story, titled “DP Ruto arrives in Washington for US tour”, but her failure to attribute this meant the story took as gospel a statement by Ruto campaign officials, alluded at the end to have come from Ruto’s advisor and former Foreign Affairs CAS Ababu Namwamba.

Predictably, the regurgitated itinerary would set up the media to report inaccuracies from the actual visit.

“Ruto to visit the White House,” a Star heading still said on March 3. The story by Brian Oruta said flatly that Ruto would hold “a meeting with US National Security Council.”

To compound matters, the campaign’s director of communication, Hussein Mohamed, tweeted on May 4:

“Kenya’s Deputy President Dr William Ruto and former Vice President Musalia Mudavadi led a delegation that was hosted at the White House in Washington, DC today, in a closed door meeting where issues of strategic partnership between USA and Kenya were discussed.”

How do we know Ruto didn’t visit the White House or hold a meeting with the US National Security Council?

The Media Observer debunked this immediately it happened in an elaborate tweet on March 4, 2022.

First, the video clip purporting to support Mohamed’s tweet showed Ruto and Mudavadi visiting the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, situated just west of the White House. No picture has surfaced showing Ruto in the White House or getting into or out of it, or with any US government officials at White House level.

As David Makali, a former Standard managing editor, put it in a rejoinder tweet: “Which meeting is this that has only the identities of the visiting delegation and none of the hosts, ama they were hosted by the building?”

Second, it appears nobody in Ruto’s communication team knew what is the U.S. National Security Council – and neither did our media.

The White House website says that the NSC, as it’s abbreviated, is the US President’s principal forum for coordinating various US government agencies, particularly matters that directly impact national security and foreign policy.

The President chairs the council. Principals include the Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

Other standard attendees include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is head of all US military, the Director of National Intelligence, the White House Chief of Staff, and Counsel to the President.

So, does anybody actually believe that Kenya’s Deputy President met with the US National Security Council? How? For what?

It appears that the only fact, backed by pictures in several independent media, is that the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Molly Phee greeted Ruto and gifted him with an animal curving at Foggy Bottom, home to the State Department.

This is a perfunctory courtesy ordinarily extended to African government officials visiting the US capital.

The Star ate humble pie with a story titled, “Update: Ruto’s visit not scheduled in White House calendar.” Google still has this heading in the search engine’s cache, but that story has vanished online.

And National Assembly Minority Leader John Mbadi’s prediction on KTN’s Checkpoint show on February 27 may have come to pass: “He will certainly meet no one serious,” Mbadi had quipped.

Citizen TV highlighted the debacle in its prime time news bulletin March 4.

So, how did lies get published? Nobody verified press statements or tweets coming from the Deputy President’s campaign. Will anyone apologise?