60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper Debunks Trump’s Claim of ‘Genocide’ of White Farmers in South Africa

Anderson Cooper traveled to South Africa to get to the bottom of President Donald Trump’s claim of a “genocide” of white, predominantly Afrikaner farmers in the latest episode of 60 Minutes on Sunday evening.

Last year, Trump signed an executive order expediting the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees to the United States.

Cooper said he visited the farm of a man named Darrel Brown “because of what President Trump said last May about the murders of South African farmers.”

Cooper played a clip of Trump saying, “It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” Trump said, referring to the press. “But it’s a terrible thing that’s taking place. And farmers are being killed. They happen to be white.”

When South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House just over a week later, Trump surprised him with video “proof” of the violence targeting white farmers.

“These are burial sites right here,” Trump said of crosses lining a roadway. “Burial sites. Over 1,000 — of white farmers,” Trump said.

Trump repeated the claim of a “genocide” of white South Africans when in Davos, Switzerland, last month.

“We found the spot where those white crosses were once planted,” Cooper continued. “It’s a lonely pothole road, not far from Brown’s ranch.”

“It definitely wasn’t a burial site,” Brown told Cooper. “I mean those crosses were there for less than 48 hours. It was purely an avenue of crosses we planted there in honor of commercial farmers in South Africa that had lost their lives.”

COOPER: Brown knows about the crosses because he put them there on the day of his friends’ Glen and Vida’s funeral. He keeps them locked in shed. In 2024, he brought them out again for the funeral of his best friend Tollly Nell, who was also murdered on his farm. His wife Renee still lives there. Her husband was killed in front of her trying to fight off burglars. Her son was tied up while they stole cash and guns. No one has been arrested.

Cooper then asked another citizen named Renee Nell, “When you heard President Trump talk about a genocide what did you think?”

“Well, I just thought he was using the wrong word,” she said.

“In your opinion it’s not a genocide here?” Cooper asked.

“Not what I know of genocide. Now what I’ve heard a genocide is. I see our attack as an opportunistic attack,” she said.

Cooper continued:

South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The murder rate is seven times that of the United States. And the majority of victims and perpetrators are Black. According to police, more than 25,000 people were murdered here in 2024. It’s estimated 37 of them were killed on farms.

Cooper spoke to an Afrikaner who heads the country’s largest agricultural organization.

“It’s actually not about white genocide. It’s about criminality in south Africa,” he said. “That’s what’s happening on farms, and it’s what’s happening in streets in Johannesburg and other major cities — it’s crime. The fact that it happened on a farm, doesn’t make me special as a farmer. Any murder is horrendous.”

Cooper’s report comes just a few days after he turned down a deal to remain a correspondent for the program.

Watch the clip above via 60 Minutes on CBS News.

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