Anderson Cooper Report Fails To Cover Full Story In South Africa

CNN’s Anderson Cooper traveled to South Africa to fact-check President Donald Trump’s explosive claim that white farmers are facing genocide. What he delivered instead was a tightly packaged 15-minute segment on “60 Minutes” that pushed back on Trump’s language — while leaving major allegations hanging in the air.

Cooper made it clear from the start why he was there: Trump had accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of being complicit in what he called the “genocide” of white farmers. In a tense Oval Office exchange months earlier, Trump even played footage of Julius Malema, leader of a radical black nationalist party, chanting “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” before thousands of supporters.

Ramaphosa flatly denied the genocide accusation.

Cooper set out to test Trump’s claims. He highlighted one of the most viral images Trump referenced — a long stretch of road lined with white crosses, which Trump described as burial sites for more than a thousand murdered white farmers. When Cooper visited the location, the crosses were gone. The rancher who placed them there, Daryl Brown, explained they were a temporary memorial honoring fallen farmers, not actual graves.

That revelation undercut Trump’s specific claim. But it did not erase the violence those crosses symbolized.

Cooper emphasized that South Africa faces staggering crime overall. Police estimate more than 25,000 murders nationwide in 2024. Of those, 37 occurred on farms. He also cited early 2025 data showing that five of six farm homicide victims in the first quarter were black, suggesting the violence is not racially exclusive.

The broader message of the segment was clear: South Africa has a crime crisis, not a targeted racial extermination campaign.

But critics argue that framing leaves out uncomfortable details.

Multiple South Africans interviewed separately have described farm attacks that go beyond robbery. Survivors recount being tied up, tortured, beaten with tools, scalded with boiling water, and subjected to racial slurs. In some cases, attackers allegedly left without stealing valuables. Others point to political rhetoric — including repeated public chants of “Kill the Boer” — as evidence that at least some violence is racially charged.