Yet again, a 60 Minutes story that counters a Trump administration narrative has aired after being delayed and unusually scrutinized by CBS. This time, veteran journalist Anderson Cooper traveled to South Africa, finding evidence to debunk President Donald Trump’s inflammatory claim that a ‘genocide’ against white farmers occurred in the country.
Cooper debunks claims of genocide, mass graves for white South African farmers
Cooper traced the origin of the conspiracy theory that Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who once displaced Black South Africans and implemented apartheid, were now being targeted under the Black-led post-apartheid government. As Blavity reported, in 2018, Tucker Carlson used his Fox News show to demonize South African land redistribution policies, a claim that attracted Trump’s attention.
Max du Preez, an Afrikaner journalist, laughed off the idea that he’d been the victim of discrimination, saying, “Donald Trump was fed this information, this link: farm murders, genocide. There is no such a thing.”
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place, that you people don’t want to write about,” Trump said at a news conference last year, “but it’s a terrible thing that’s taking place, and farmers are being killed. They happen to be white.” Trump repeated these genocide claims in front of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a joint White House appearance, with Trump showing video of a long line of white crosses erected alongside a South African road. “These are burial sites right here, burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers.”
Cooper spoke to Darrel Brown, the white South African farmer who erected the crosses. Brown clarified that the crosses, which he set up along the roadside, were erected as a memorial for deceased South African farmers. Though Brown lamented attacks that had killed farmers, including several of his friends, he disputed Trump’s comments about the crosses.
“It definitely wasn’t a burial site. I mean, those crosses were there for less than 48 hours,” Brown told Cooper.
CBS News, Bari Weiss accused of pro-Trump interference
Despite the evidence contradicting Trump’s genocide claims, the president and other conservatives, including South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, continue to push this narrative. Based on these claims, the Trump administration cut off U.S. foreign aid to South Africa and created a fast-track process for white South Africans claiming oppression to come to the U.S. as refugees, even as Trump blocked or curtailed refugees from other countries. Sunday’s 60 Minutes story disputing Trump’s white genocide claims, which also included statistics demonstrating that farmers were not being disproportionately killed in the country, was initially delayed and subjected to an “abnormal” level of scrutiny, according to CBS sources.
Cooper recently declined an offer to renew his contract with 60 Minutes, with the interference into this story believed to be part of his rationale for leaving the show. Last year, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned after he claimed the show had “lost the independence that honest journalism required,” with stories on Gaza and the Trump administration receiving unusual scrutiny. These criticisms have grown with the later appointment of CBS News head Bari Weiss, who has been accused of trying to appeal to the Trump administration by suppressing or delaying news stories critical of Trump and his policies. Weiss controversially pulled a story on CECOT, the brutal El Salvadoran prison where Kilmar Abrego Garcia and many other people deported by the Trump administration have been detained.
The CECOT story soon leaked online and eventually appeared on 60 Minutes weeks after it was initially scheduled to air. Now, another story that was potentially delayed for political reasons has finally made it to air, yet again shining a negative light on Trump’s foreign policy and calling out the administration over dubious claims.