02/22/2026: Left Behind, South Africa's Refugees, Is That Art?

Summary

60 Minutes Podcast – February 23, 2026: “Left Behind, South Africa’s Refugees, Is That Art?”

Episode Overview This episode of 60 Minutes explores three compelling segments: the economic and social struggles in McDowell County, West Virginia ("Left Behind"), the controversial resettlement of white South African farmers as refugees in the U.S. ("South Africa's Refugees"), and the emergence of artificial intelligence as a new medium in the art world ("Is That Art?"). The show features first-hand accounts from impacted Americans, South Africans, artists, and critics, delivering in-depth reporting on inequality, policy impacts, and cultural debates.

Segment 1: Left Behind – McDowell County, West Virginia
Timestamps: [03:59] – [17:24]

Key Discussion Points:

• McDowell County’s transformation from the nation’s largest coal producer to one of the poorest areas in the U.S., with a population that shrank from nearly 100,000 at its peak to just 17,000.
• Widespread poverty, hunger, opioid epidemic, and crumbling infrastructure—especially the lack of clean drinking water.
• The looming impact of historic federal funding cuts to SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid, accompanied by stricter work requirements.
• Residents express feeling abandoned by both the government and broader American society.

Notable Moments & Quotes:

• On local struggle and resilience:
  • “If you would ask probably nine out of 10 individuals here, they would tell you that they feel very much forgotten.” — Scott Pelley [05:50]
• Pastor Brad Davis on rootedness:
  • “I've heard directly people say, ‘Well, why don't people just move?’ And my response is, why should we? … This is home.” [06:25]
• On food insecurity:
  • "If I go to the grocery store, I can't get out of there less than $200, and that … That's a week. … Groceries are really high. … I cut back on chicken, vegetables." — Betty Stepp [06:42]
  • “The children is what breaks my heart. … They didn’t ask to be brought into this situation, and they suffer daily.” — Linda McKinney, food bank director [08:28]
• On living on the edge:
  • “In the month of December, my electrical bill was $480.” — Tabitha Collins, local mother and sole breadwinner [11:37]
  • “We rely on the benefits very much, and it's not because we're taking advantage of the government. It's because we actually need these things.” — Tabitha [12:22]
• Political disillusionment:
  • “Economic resurgence, renaissance of the coal industry, the elimination of poverty, fixing our water systems. Big promises, and nothing ever changes.” [14:09]
• Public health crisis – Water woes:
  • “There are people in parts of this county who haven't taken a hot shower in six years or longer because the fumes from the water makes them physically ill.” — Pastor Brad Davis [15:12]
  • “This shouldn't be the case anywhere in the world, let alone in the wealthiest nation in the world.” [16:03]
• End note on hope and exhaustion:
  • “I'm tired of it, too. It's gone on long enough.” — Pastor Brad Davis [17:24]

Segment 2: South Africa’s Refugees
Timestamps: [18:35] – [31:46]

Key Discussion Points:

• The Trump administration’s decision to expedite resettlement of white South African farmers as refugees, citing so-called “genocide” claims.
• Examination of whether white farmers in South Africa face government-sponsored race-based violence and land seizures, with background from local farmers, families of victims of crime, economists, and Afrikaner community leaders.
• Context around South Africa's Land Expropriation Act, entrenched economic and racial inequality after apartheid, and how international narratives have eclipsed reality, often fueling white supremacist tropes abroad.
• South African farmers and experts overwhelmingly attribute violence to general criminality rather than targeted genocide.

Notable Moments & Quotes:

• Realities on the ground:
  • “Did you grow up knowing you would be a farmer?”
    “It was always in my blood. It's a calling.” — Darrell Brown, white South African farmer [19:25]
  • “Do you live in fear?”
    “I certainly live carefully.” — Darrell Brown [19:51]
• Trump, Ramaphosa, and the cross display:
  • “These are burial sites right here.” — President Trump, showing footage at the White House [20:43]
  • “It definitely wasn't a burial site. … Those crosses were there for less than 48 hours. It was purely an avenue of crosses that we planted there in honor of commercial farmers in South Africa that had lost their lives.” — Darrell Brown [21:02]
• Is it genocide?
  • “Well, I just thought he was using the wrong word ... In your opinion? It's not a genocide here.” — Renee Nell, widow of murdered farmer [22:34]
  • “It's about criminality in South Africa. … The fact that it happened on a farm doesn't make me special as a farmer. It's horrendous. Any murder is horrendous.” — Johan Kotza, head of South Africa’s largest agri organization [24:31, 24:39]
  • “South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The murder rate is seven times that of the United States. … In 2024, 25,000 people were murdered here. It's estimated 37 of them were killed on farms.” [24:06]
• Economic and historic context:
  • “Poverty is the biggest driver of crime in South Africa. … South Africa remains one of the world's most economically unequal countries. 44% of blacks here live in poverty, compared to 1% of whites.” [24:51]
• White genocide narrative questioned:
  • “Donald Trump was fed this information … There is no such a thing.” — Max Dupre, journalist [27:40]
  • “There is a serious threat to property rights. There is a serious threat to the lives of farmers and that needs to be recognized.” — Kali Creel, Afriforum CEO [29:07]
  • “We've never used the term white genocide. We're saying there are tortures, people are being murdered. We are seeing a call for genocide.” — Kali Creel [29:23]
  • “Did you ever imagine that virtually the only group of refugees going to be allowed in the US would be white Afrikaners? That shows up the complete absurdity of this ... They're saying white lives are worth more than other lives.” — Max Dupre [31:00]
  • “I'm an African. I've been burnt by the African sun and I'm not going anywhere.” — Darrell Brown [31:28]

Segment 3: Is That Art? – AI and the Art World
Timestamps: [32:06] – [44:44]

Key Discussion Points:

• Introduction to Rafiq Anadol, Turkish-American artist and pioneer in AI-generated visual art.
• Exploration of Anadol’s process: using big data (as “pigment”) and artificial intelligence as a “co-creator” to generate immersive, ever-evolving visual installations.
• Success in the art and tech world: Major exhibits (e.g., at the MoMA), high-profile partnerships (Google, MIT), sales of AI pieces for over $1 million.
• Debate over whether AI-generated art is genuine art, including approval, skepticism, and outright opposition from art critics and traditional artists.
• Intellectual property concerns: Art critics like Molly Crabapple call mass training of AI on artists’ work without consent the “greatest art heist in history.”

Notable Moments & Quotes:

• Artistic philosophy:
  • “So I'm a media artist and I'm using data and AI in my work. … I paint with a thinking brush.” — Rafiq Anadol [34:06]
  • “I tried my very best last 10 years to make a 50% machine, 50% human.” — Anadol on working as a co-creator with AI [37:28]
• MoMA’s Glenn Lowry on ‘Unsupervised’:
  • “People sat in front of it for hours, literally transfixed by what they were seeing. It's an amazing painting.” — Glenn Lowry, MoMA Director [38:22]
• Mixed critical reactions:
  • “It's like a giant lava lamp that you can't take your eyes off of.” — Jerry Saltz, art critic [39:25]
  • “AI is art. AI will be art. … Most of what you see in AI Sharon is crap. ... 90% crap. But 90% of the art made during the Renaissance was also crap. Things take time.” — Jerry Saltz [40:38, 41:08]
• IP debate & ethics:
  • “You've called this the greatest art heist in history.” — Leslie Stahl
    “Yes. ... They stole billions and billions of images.” — Molly Crabapple [41:54]
  • “As an artist, I only use my own data.” — Rafiq Anadol [43:20]
  • “There are some people that say AI can never truly create art because it lacks emotion, it lacks lived experience, and it lacks intent.” — Leslie Stahl [44:21]
  • “That's why I believe human machine collaboration. ... Just be sure that it's done right and its shared rights and celebrate this new age of imagination.” — Rafiq Anadol [44:34]

Closing:

• [46:12] A brief, reflective epilogue with Mike Eruzione, captain of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, on American resilience and the power of collective effort in the face of doubt.
  • “If you believe in something and you're willing to work for it, you can accomplish it. And our team exemplified that.” — Mike Eruzione [46:12]

Episode Flow:

• The show moves from the intimate and urgent economic and social challenges of an American county left behind, to contested and politicized stories of migration and violence in South Africa, and finally plunges the listener into the debate over what defines art in the digital age.
• The voices of those affected remain front and center, with correspondents offering pressing questions and thoughtful context.
• The tone is serious, sometimes indignant, and challenges the audience to reconsider easy assumptions on poverty, migration, and creativity.

Recommended Listening:

• [06:25] – Pastor Brad Davis on community and home (“Why should we have to move?”)
• [15:12] – Pastor Brad Davis describes water crisis (“There are people … who haven’t had a hot shower in six years …”)
• [19:51] – Darrell Brown on living in fear as a farmer in South Africa
• [21:02] – Darrell Brown on the reality of “burial sites” of white farmers
• [29:23] – Kali Creel on the meaning behind government land policies
• [34:06] – Rafiq Anadol on “painting with a thinking brush”
• [40:38] – Jerry Saltz on the future of AI art (“AI is art. AI will be art.”)
• [46:12] – Mike Eruzione on the “Miracle on Ice” and American greatness

For Viewers:
To see the AI art segment and decide for yourself, visit 60minutesovertime.com for immersive visuals and more.

Transcript

[Leslie Stahl]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. What if comparing car insurance rates was

[Scott Pelley]

as easy as putting on your favorite podcast with Progressive?

[Leslie Stahl]

It is. Just visit the Progressive website to quote with all the coverages you want. You'll see Progressive's direct rate. Then their tool will provide options from other companies so you can compare. All you need to do is choose

[Scott Pelley]

the rate and coverage you like. Quote [e-mail] to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive, Progressive Casualty

[Leslie Stahl]

Insurance Company and affiliates. Comparison rates not available in all states or situations.

[Scott Pelley]

Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Leslie Stahl]

Build something you can be proud of. There's something incredibly satisfying about learning something new and actually watching your progress build over time. That's what I love about Rosetta Stone. You don't have to dive in for hours. You start small, fit lessons into your day and suddenly you're understanding more than you thought you would. Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years and they're immers. Intuitive method really stands out. There's no memorizing random vocabulary lists and no feeling lost. You learn naturally, starting with words, building to phrases and then full sentences without English translations so it actually sticks. Plus, Rosetta Stone offers 25 languages from Spanish and French to German and Japanese, all designed for long term retention. Don't wait, unlock your language learning potential. Now listeners of this podcast can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off the that's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit RosettaStone.com/Rs10 to get started and claim your 50% off today. Go to Rosetta Stone.comRs10 and start learning today. Drive 350 miles from the nation's capital to McDowell County, West Virginia, where affordability is the difference between buying groceries and heating a home. Clean drinking water is hard to come by here. A turn of the tap can look like this.

[Scott Pelley]

This shouldn't be the case anywhere in the world, let alone in the wealthiest nation in the world. There is one group of refugees being welcomed to the United States. President Trump says white farmers from South Africa are victims of a genocide.

[Leslie Stahl]

These are burial sites right here.

[Scott Pelley]

Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers we went to South Africa to see for ourselves.

[Leslie Stahl]

It definitely wasn't a burial site. I mean those crosses were there for less than 48 hours. Rafiq Anadol invited us inside this space at his LA studio. Every image that surrounds us Anadol created using artificial intelligence. So those are not real birds? Nope. Take it in. Whoa. A hypnotic flow of shapes and colors that can make you feel like Alice in Wonderland stumbled into Studio 54. Is this a party trick? I don't think so. I feel like it's a new form of art. I'm Leslie Stahl.

[Scott Pelley]

I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper.

[Leslie Stahl]

I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. Those stories and in our last minute, a hockey great reflects on America's goals. Tonight on 60 Minutes.

[Scott Pelley]

Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires.

[Leslie Stahl]

I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his uncle.

[Scott Pelley]

Timely end. This is very strange.

[Leslie Stahl]

Angie, the one you trust to find

[Scott Pelley]

the ones you trust.

[Leslie Stahl]

Find pros for all your home [e-mail] she loves it hot, he loves it cool. The Pod by Eight Sleep is a smart mattress cover that fits on your bed and keeps each side at the perfect temperature all night long. By staying comfortably warm or cool, the Pod helps you sleep deeper and wake up feeling more rested. Every morning you get daily health insights and a sleep fitness score. Get up to $350 off with code deep [e-mail] for some, these are the boom times. 401ks are surging. The stock market has hit an all time high. But drive just 350 miles from the nation's capital and the conversation isn't about how to get rich, but how to survive. McDowell County, West Virginia, was once the nation's largest coal producer. It is now one of the poorest places in the country where the food stamp program started and later the opioid crisis took hold. Today, one in three households there depends on those food stamps. And now the program that has fed families for decades is facing the largest cuts in history. We went to McDowell county last month and learned that this is an all too familiar pattern. Government help comes and goes. Promises are made and broken, and the people are left behind. McDowell county sits deep in the southern coal fields of West Virginia, stretching more than 500 square miles across the Appalachian Mountains. There's just one traffic light and more churches than we could count. It's a place where clean drinking water is hard to come by. A turn of the tap can look like this.

[Scott Pelley]

I think if you would ask probably

[Leslie Stahl]

nine out of 10 individuals here, they would tell you that they feel very much forgotten. By who?

[Scott Pelley]

Everybody, the government, every institution that you can think of.

[Leslie Stahl]

So tell me about the Congregation. Pastor Brad Davis grew up in the coal fields just over the county line and now leads congregations at five United Methodist churches in McDowell. He spends his days listening to those who trust God, each other, and not much else. I've heard directly people say, well, why don't people just move?

[Scott Pelley]

And my response to that is, why should we?

[Leslie Stahl]

Why should we have to move?

[Scott Pelley]

This is home.

[Leslie Stahl]

Now we're coming into Anahwalt. Home sweet home.

[Scott Pelley]

Home.

[Leslie Stahl]

Betty Stepp has lived in the town of Anahwalt for all of her 76 years.

[Scott Pelley]

There's Jackie.

[Leslie Stahl]

Everybody honks at everybody long enough to remember when there was still a school, a theater, and a doctor. If you run out of milk, you gotta drive. How far? 45 minutes. 45 minutes. Two mountains. That's if you can afford a car. Many here can't. Yet the only business left in town to be on their best behavior. Tom and Donald's Mechanic Shop. This is Tom. Hi, how are you doing? How are you? This is Donald. The famous Donald. Donald and Tom are beloved by all the widows in this area. A retired teacher's aide, Betty and her husband live on a fixed income. These days, everything feels expensive. If I go to the grocery store, I can't get out of there. Less than $200, and that is. That's a week. Sometimes it's $300. Groceries are really high. What have you had to cut back on in these times? Beef for sure. I cut back on chicken, vegetables. She's not alone. Across the country, families are feeling the squeeze. Food prices are almost 20% higher today than in 2022. I've heard a lot of folks from this community say, if we don't help each other, no one's going to help us. Nobody's going to come and save us. We save each other. Linda McKinney runs the county's largest food bank. You're allowed to come once a month, entirely on donations and volunteers. Since the government shut down this past fall, when Americans around the country lost SNAP benefits or food stamps for weeks, Linda says more new faces have been coming in lately. We have a lot of young mothers that come and they'll say, I never

[Scott Pelley]

thought I'd have to come.

[Leslie Stahl]

And the children is what breaks my heart. They didn't ask to be brought into this situation, and they suffer daily. Every weekend, more than 100 children receive backpacks filled with food so they have something to eat when they're not in school. The thing that we're finding, we have parents that say, well, my kid didn't get a snack bag. And then you find out the child on Friday is eating that food on the bus. They're hungry. They're so hungry. The food that's supposed to last them through the weekend, they're eating on the bus. They're eating on the bus. It's a tale of two economies. At the White House, you'll hear about job growth and victory over inflation.

[Scott Pelley]

We just had fantastic reports on inflation way down.

[Leslie Stahl]

But in McDowell, the median household income is about $30,000. Affordability isn't a buzzword here. It's the difference between buying groceries or paying for heat. In the 1940s, McDowell county was rich in coal jobs and these mines powered America, helping to build railroads and cities. At its Peak, nearly 100,000 people lived here, earning some of the nation's highest hourly wages. But as machines moved in, mining jobs dwindled and the local economy collapsed. In 1960, John F. Kennedy campaigned for president here.

[Scott Pelley]

I think there are at least four or five things the government can do.

[Leslie Stahl]

The poverty he witnessed led him to launch the modern food stamp program. McDowell county residents were the first recipients. Today in McDowell, there are fewer than 1,000 coal jobs left and only 17,000 people remain.

[Scott Pelley]

We lack so much.

[Leslie Stahl]

We lack jobs.

[Scott Pelley]

Just in the county alone, there is not enough jobs for everyone.

[Leslie Stahl]

26 year old Tabitha Collins was a stay at home mom until her fiance was hit by a car on the job last year and left disabled. And how often are you here?

[Scott Pelley]

I'm here five days a week.

[Leslie Stahl]

She works at a local nonprofit, Big Creek People in Action, and is the sole income earner for her family of six. Along with caring for their toddler, she's also helping to raise her fiance's three younger siblings.

[Scott Pelley]

It's up to you to raise these kids in a decent manner, you know, and try to teach them about the

[Leslie Stahl]

drug epidemic and how it can affect

[Scott Pelley]

others because that's a lot of what we struggle with.

[Leslie Stahl]

In a county ravaged by opioids. It's a common story. The epidemic claimed a generation of parents, leaving family members like Tabitha raising more children on less. Even with food stamps, she often comes up short.

[Scott Pelley]

We still struggle for food wise. I still have to take a lot out of my payday, which therefore doesn't go towards bills. And in the wintertime, our power is very high.

[Leslie Stahl]

You living paycheck to paycheck? Yes. And when you say the electrical bills were high, how high are we talking?

[Scott Pelley]

In the month of December, my electrical bill was $480.

[Leslie Stahl]

You got a shut off notice? We sure did.

[Scott Pelley]

I mean, it was scary. I was trying to figure out which bill is more important, you know, and it comes down to that.

[Leslie Stahl]

That choice is about to become more difficult. SNAP and Medicaid benefits are facing the biggest federal funding cuts in history, more than a trillion dollars over the next decade as a result of President Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill passed last year. It will be up to states to pick up more of the costs, and recipients will face stricter work requirements. Tens of thousands of West Virginians will likely lose benefits.

[Scott Pelley]

We rely on the benefits very much, and it's not because we're taking advantage of the government. It's because we actually need these things.

[Leslie Stahl]

I wonder if you think that that's what the perception is that some people have.

[Scott Pelley]

I do, but I don't believe that. I mean, we are. A lot of us are working citizens, and we're still barely making it by.

[Leslie Stahl]

Outsiders are often quick to assume this is Trump country, but politics here defy easy labels. For decades, McDowell voted blue, backing Barack Obama in 2008 and Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary. In the last three elections, President Trump won the county, which had the lowest voter participation in the state.

[Scott Pelley]

I think we as a community collectively are so desperate to see some sort

[Leslie Stahl]

of change that when someone comes along

[Scott Pelley]

and says, I'm going to make coal great again, we desperately cling to that with a death grip. And I think that goes a long way in explaining why the political climate here has shifted the way it has.

[Leslie Stahl]

To show our appreciation. Earlier this month, coal executives and miners handed President Trump a trophy, declaring him the quote, undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal. After his latest executive order aimed at booming, boosting the coal industry. In McDowell, whether from the White House or the State House, they've heard it all before. What are the promises that have been made and not kept?

[Scott Pelley]

Economic resurgence, renaissance of the coal industry, the elimination of poverty, fixing our water systems. Big promises, big promises, and nothing ever changes.

[Leslie Stahl]

Nowhere is the failure of government more clear than in the county's water supply, which at times is not clear at all. Few trust that it's safe enough to drink. And angry residents have documented the black and brown that oozes from aging pipes and contamination left behind from the coal industry. West Virginia's governor recently set aside $8.3 million in federal funds to upgrade sewage and water lines in McDowell, a drop in the bucket compared to what county and state officials say is still needed. This is tap water. When Pastor Brad isn't in church, he's often pleading with politicians to do more. You see this as a public health crisis? Absolutely.

[Scott Pelley]

There are people in parts of this

[Leslie Stahl]

county who haven't taken a hot shower

[Scott Pelley]

in six years or longer because the fumes from the water makes them physically

[Leslie Stahl]

ill. Reports of skin rashes and burns are not uncommon. Many families spend upwards of $150 a month for bottled water on top of their water bills. It's a luxury not everyone can afford. So they fill up here at this old mine shaft, shooting water from the side of a mountain. I think it's going to be hard for a lot of folks to get their mind around that. You've got American citizens getting a ride to a spring on the side of the road to bring a jug to fill up because that's their only access to water. And it should be hard for people

[Scott Pelley]

to wrap their minds around because this

[Leslie Stahl]

shouldn't be the case. This shouldn't be the case anywhere in

[Scott Pelley]

the world, let alone in the wealthiest nation in the world.

[Leslie Stahl]

To ease the burden, Betty Stepp and other retirees, the youngest of whom is 70, go door to door delivering heavy cases of water to neighbors. I think our government needs to hear us. We've worked our whole life here. Why won't they help us? Does it matter who's in charge? It doesn't matter if it's Republicans or Democrats. It doesn't matter. In McDowell county, people face two choices. Stay and scrape by or scrape together enough money to leave. Tabitha Collins is staying. You're 26 years old and you're raising four kids. That's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot.

[Scott Pelley]

I don't know how I get through it, but I do. I just want to live the dream like anyone else does. You know, have a family, have a home and not stress about the hardships that we have around here.

[Leslie Stahl]

Parishioners have told you that they feel like they're tired of living in what feels like a third world country.

[Scott Pelley]

That's a direct quote.

[Leslie Stahl]

What do you say to someone who says that to you? Amen. Amen.

[Scott Pelley]

Cause I'm tired of it, too. It's gone on long enough. Foreign. Fox News is now streaming live on Fox 1. When news breaks, we don't just report it. We go beyond the headlines to get the full story. Get live coverage in depth, analysis and perspectives from the voices you trust all in one place.

[Leslie Stahl]

Whether you're at home or on the go.

[Scott Pelley]

Stay connected to the stories shaping our world stream. Fox News on Fox 1 download today.

[Leslie Stahl]

The degree was hard. Paying it off shouldn't be with earnest refinancing your student Loans is easy. Check your rate in minutes with no credit impact. Customize your monthly payment down to the dollar. Need a break? Skip a payment once a year with no penalty fees. And here's the best part, no fees of any kind. Earnest student loan refinancing made easy. Earnest loans are made by Earnest Operations llc. Skipping a payment still incurs interest. Terms and conditions apply.

[Scott Pelley]

In November, President Trump announced he would, quote, permanently pause migration from all Third World countries to the US After a member of the National Guard was killed and another badly wounded in Washington, allegedly by an Afghan refugee. But there is one group of refugees the Trump administration is welcoming. It's expediting the resettlement of white South Africans, mostly Afrikaners, who are descendants of Dutch settlers. President Trump says that white farmers are victims of a genocide. The South African government disputes that. We went to South Africa to see for ourselves. In the rolling hills of KwaZulu Natal Province in the southeast of South Africa, we met Darrell Brown, a seventh generation rancher and farmer. Did you grow up knowing you would be a farmer?

[Leslie Stahl]

It was always in my blood. It's a calling.

[Scott Pelley]

But that calling has often come with risks. Ten years ago, his 82 year old father was brutally attacked on the farm by robbers looking for guns and Money. Then in 2020, Brown's friends Glenn and Vida Rafferty were murdered in a robbery on their farm nearby. Your father was attacked. You've had friends murdered. Do you live in fear?

[Leslie Stahl]

I certainly live carefully. We're aware of what's happening around us. We don't take silly chances.

[Scott Pelley]

We came to Darrell Brown's farm because of what President Trump said last May about the murders of South African American farmers. It's a genocide that's taking place that

[Leslie Stahl]

you people don't want to write about.

[Scott Pelley]

But it's a terrible thing that's taking place. And farmers are being killed.

[Leslie Stahl]

They happen to be white.

[Scott Pelley]

Nine days later, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa came to the White House. Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and has also made claims of genocide, was there too. What happened next seemed to take Ramaphosa by surprise. Excuse me.

[Leslie Stahl]

Turn the lights down.

[Scott Pelley]

President Trump showed several videos, proof, the White House said, of the violence targeting white farmers.

[Leslie Stahl]

These are burial sites right here.

[Scott Pelley]

Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers. We found the spot where those white crosses were once planted. It's a lonely pothole road not far from Darrell Brown's ranch.

[Leslie Stahl]

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

[Scott Pelley]

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

[Leslie Stahl]

My whole life has changed. I've got nothing to look forward to. Sorry.

[Scott Pelley]

Tiennes now runs the farm. He carries a weapon with him almost all the time.

[Leslie Stahl]

The only time I don't have it on me is when is when I'm in the shower, really, because I don't ever want another situation to arise where I feel that I'm a victim.

[Scott Pelley]

The Nels have hired private security guards and fortified their property with electric vehicles, fences and cameras. Many in South Africa feel they can't rely on the country's ineffective and overwhelmed police to keep them safe. When you heard President Trump talk about a genocide, what did you think?

[Leslie Stahl]

Well, I just thought he was using the wrong word.

[Scott Pelley]

In your opinion? It's not a genocide here.

[Leslie Stahl]

Not what I know as a genocide, not what I've heard of what a genocide is. I see our attack as a opportunistic at it. They knew there was money, they knew there were firearms.

[Scott Pelley]

Whites make up only about 7% of the population of South Africa, but still own 72% of all privately held agricultural land and many of the country's large commercial farms. But according to Wandili Salobo, a leading agricultural economist, the overwhelming number of farmers and those working on farms are are black.

[Leslie Stahl]

The white farmers may have a bigger part of the proportion of income, but the vast majority of people operating the farms in South Africa are black.

[Scott Pelley]

There is crime on farms, there are murders on farms. They affect black farmers as well as white farmers.

[Leslie Stahl]

They affect black farmers as well as white farmers and also farm workers who are largely black.

[Scott Pelley]

Nakhlala Zuma farmed this nine acre plot for 20 years. He was used to having equipment stolen, but in 2024, a group of men shot at him and broke into his house. Did you think at the time they were going to kill you?

[Leslie Stahl]

100%. 100%.

[Scott Pelley]

After the attack, he decided to sell the farm.

[Leslie Stahl]

There are a lot of black farmers that are attacked and the voices are not out.

[Scott Pelley]

People don't pay attention.

[Leslie Stahl]

It's just another number, not a statistic.

[Scott Pelley]

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.

[Leslie Stahl]

37 out of 25,000. For us as farmers, that 37 is too much.

[Scott Pelley]

Johan Kotza is an Afrikaner who's head of South Africa's largest agricultural organization. It's actually not about white genocide.

[Leslie Stahl]

It's about criminality in South Africa.

[Scott Pelley]

That's what's happening on farms. It's what's happening in streets in Johannesburg and other major cities. It's crime. It's crime. The fact that it happened on a farm doesn't make me special as a farmer. It's horrendous. Any murder is horrendous. South African police only began publishing the race of those murdered on farm farms under pressure last year. In the first quarter of 2025, they reported six farm homicides. Five of the victims were black. Poverty is the biggest driver of crime in South Africa. And how do you solve that? South Africa remains one of the world's most economically unequal countries. 44% of blacks here live in poverty, compared to 1% of whites. Khotsa went to Washington last February to talk with administration officials about the economic problems here. He was surprised by what they focused on. They asked us about the white genocide,

[Leslie Stahl]

and the first thing I said is,

[Scott Pelley]

Afrikaans is what you can get. I grew up Afrikaans, and I never witnessed that. South Africa's 2.7 million Afrikaners descend from Dutch settlers who arrived on the continent 400 years ago. Every year, they celebrate their culture, culture and language in the shadow of the Voortrekker Monument, which was built as a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism. Millions of black South Africans were forcibly evicted from their land and lost their rights to it by law in 1913. When Afrikaners took power in 1948, they instituted apartheid, a brutal system of racial segregation and discrimination. Blacks had virtually no rights and laws restricted where they could live and work. That all changed in 1994, when black South Africans were allowed to vote and elected Nelson Mandela.

[Leslie Stahl]

God bless Africa.

[Scott Pelley]

In the decades since, there has been progress, a growing black middle class and a reduction in poverty. But some controversial government efforts to redress inequalities have been plagued by graft and cronyism we're here today to talk about South Africa. White supremacists in the US and elsewhere have long portrayed Afrikaners as victims of discrimination and worse, genocide. But those claims didn't go mainstream until 2018, when then Fox News host Tucker Carlson began alleging Afrikaner farmers were being killed and having their land seized. An embattled minority of farmers, mostly Afrikaans

[Leslie Stahl]

speaking, is being targeted in a wave

[Scott Pelley]

of barbaric and horrifying murders. President Trump then tagged Tucker Carlson in a tweet saying there were large scale killings of farmers in South Africa and the government was now seizing land from white farmers. Are there large scale killings of farmers and is the government seizing land?

[Leslie Stahl]

It is not happening. Donald Trump was fed this information, this

[Scott Pelley]

linked farm murders, genocide. There is no such a thing. Max Dupre is a prominent Afrikaans journalist and former newspaper editor. Are you the victim of unjust discrimination?

[Leslie Stahl]

I've never been discriminated against and I'm

[Scott Pelley]

a loud mouthed citizen because I'm a journalist.

[Leslie Stahl]

So I express myself very strongly also against this inept, corrupt government.

[Scott Pelley]

Discrimination is outlawed under South African American Africa's constitution, which also protects property rights and due process. But in January last year, the South African Parliament approved a land Expropriation act, which critics say violates that constitution. The government compares the Expropriation act to eminent domain in the United States, which allows it to buy private land for public use. What's different is that South Africa's Expropriation act could in some cases allow the government to take land without compensation and not just for public use, but to redress past discriminatory laws. Landowners have the right to fight back in court, but that might take years. The Expropriation act isn't in effect yet, and it's being challenged in court by South Africa's second largest political party and by Kali Creel, the CEO of the Africana rights group Afriforum, who has repeatedly traveled with others to Washington to lobby for support.

[Leslie Stahl]

There is a serious threat to property rights. There is a serious threat to the lives of farmers and that needs to be recognized.

[Scott Pelley]

Are white farmers being killed for their land?

[Leslie Stahl]

Yes, I believe so.

[Scott Pelley]

Is there a white genocide going on in South Africa?

[Leslie Stahl]

We've never used the term white genocide. We're saying there are tortures, people are being murdered. We are seeing a call for genocide.

[Scott Pelley]

Shoot to kill. The call for genocide Creel is talking about is this song, Kill the Boer the Farmer, Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer, which President Trump played a video of in the Oval Office in May in the 1980s and 90s. It was sung at protests against apartheid and is still used at rallies by the man singing Julius Malema, a race baiting opposition politician who wants the government to seize white owned land.

[Leslie Stahl]

You know what the rhetoric is is that we hear the same people that chant kill the work, kill the farmer, use the narratives to try and portray Afrikaners and farmers as thieves.

[Scott Pelley]

Has any farmer had their land taken in the last 30 years of black rule here in this country without compensation or without having redress through courts?

[Leslie Stahl]

Of course the legislation did not allow it. The new legislation allows it.

[Scott Pelley]

President Trump cited the Expropriation act in his executive order last February cutting off all aid to South Africa and allowing for the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government sponsored race based discrimination. The first group of 59 Africana refugees arrived in May. Now almost 2,000 are here. Did you ever imagine that virtually the only group of refugees going to be allowed in the US would be white Afrikaners? That shows up the complete absurdity of

[Leslie Stahl]

this Afrikaner refugee thing. Because they're saying these white Afrikaner refugees, their lives are more important than the bonafide refugees from everywhere else in the world that wants to come there.

[Scott Pelley]

They're saying white lives are worth more than other lives. Remember Darrell Brown, the farmer who organized the protests with the white crosses? He says he won't be packing his bags to become a refugee in America anytime soon.

[Leslie Stahl]

I'm an African. I've been burnt by the African sun and I'm not going anywhere.

[Scott Pelley]

There's a lot of sun in Florida.

[Leslie Stahl]

I'm very positive about South Africa. This is my.

[Scott Pelley]

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.

[Leslie Stahl]

But if you've forgotten to get that

[Scott Pelley]

special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday

[Leslie Stahl]

offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea.

[Scott Pelley]

You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a [e-mail] Switch limited time

[Leslie Stahl]

50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for 3 months, $90 for 6 month or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See Terms when you think about the way art is created, you might imagine painters, photographers or sculptors immersed in their work at their studios. But what about a person sitting in front of a computer screen using artificial intelligence and data to create visuals? Is that art? It's a question that is Being asked and answered by some of the most prestigious museums, critics and auction houses in the world. Some artists call AI a revolutionary new medium. Others call it theft. We wanted to see it for ourselves, so we went to Los Angeles to meet Rafiq Anadol. The 40 year old Turkish American artist is considered a pioneer in the world of AI art. If you're wondering what that world looks like, grab your Dramamine. This is. Whoa. Rafiq Anadol invited us inside this space at his LA studio. Every image that surrounds us, Anadol created using artificial intelligence. So those are not real birds? Nope. We'll get to exactly how he created it in a moment, but first, take it in. Whoa. Hypnotic flow of shapes and colors. Colors that morph and evolve in the mirrors and LED screens that surround us. It can make you feel like Alice in Wonderland stumbled into Studio 54. I will say this, you should not have a cocktail before standing here. All of this while a device around your neck pumps out different AI generated scents such as rain and flowers to accompany what you're seeing. Anadol says eventually another device will monitor viewers vital statistics such as heartbeat. And that data will be used to change the art in real time. Is this a party trick? I don't think so. I feel like it's a new form of art. Like we are discovering a new place that's never been before. If that all sounds a bit out there, consider the planetary system of Rafiq Anadol's work. His massive mind bending images have been stretched across the sphere in Las Vegas, the facade of the Walt Disney Concert hall in Los Angeles, and Antonio Gotti's Casa Batio in Barcelona. When people ask you what you do, what do you say? So I'm a media artist and I'm using data and AI in my work. So more than 16 years, I paint with a thinking brush. What's a thinking brush? I believe that information around us, a data around us, has its own voice. But like painting, drawing, the things we traditionally think of, sculpting. Do you do any of those things? I think in my mind's eye. So technically I may not draw well, but in my mind's eye I can compute. I can imagine geometrically what exactly the mind's eye is looking for to create art. Anadol uses data, lots of it. For this piece, he used 200 million photos of Earth. Data from NASA was the driving force behind these exhibits. When I think about data as a pigment, I think it doesn't need to dry. It can move in any shape, in any form Any color and texture. It sounds a little trippy. It is trippy because I think as artists we ask what is beyond reality? We can connect this one to another one. To show us how he does that, Anadol grabbed a gaming controller. So we are in this, a new algorithm that I am literally controlling the whole system. Anadol says his team curated 153 million images for a piece on California landscapes. We are flying in our data set of nature. Okay, so in this archive we have flora, fauna. Each image is converted into a series of data points that represents its characteristics, such as color, texture and shape. They're then plotted into multidimensional space. That data is what the AI learns from. So when it receives a prompt, it can create its own new version. Images, Anadol says, only quote, exist in the mind of a machine. This isn't a real place. This is not. This is AI dreaming this world. And now we are reshaping this world together. Anadol then applies special algorithms to blend and make the images into his signature fluid style. Are you a computer program programmer or are you an artist? I am an artist, but I love computers.

[Scott Pelley]

But now with AI, I feel like

[Leslie Stahl]

I have now programmed it in a way that I never imagined before. How much of this is driven by you and how much by the machine? So this is a great question because I tried my very best last 10 years to make a 50% machine, 50% human. Treating AI as a co creator has made Rafiq Anadol a darling of the tech world. He's teamed up with Google, MIT and Microsoft to create large public installations. Let's start the bidding here. He's been embraced by some in the art world. Sold at 1 million1 selling his pieces for upwards of a million dollars at auction. His work has been exhibited at museums around the world. And in 2020, in 1972, the Museum of Modern Art, New York commissioned this piece. A colossal 24 foot high installation that filled the MoMA lobby called Unsupervised. How did the public react to Unsupervised? When they came in and saw was

[Scott Pelley]

a utter extraordinary hit. People sat in front of it for for hours, literally transfixed by what they were seeing. It's an amazing painting.

[Leslie Stahl]

Glenn Lowry was the director of the MoMA for three decades. He retired in September. To create Unsupervised, Lowry told us Rafiq Anadol trained an AI system on the publicly available metadata of the entire MOMA collection. Think of metadata as the digital DNA of each piece. It describes and identifies the art Anadol used MoMA's metadata to reimagine 200 years

[Scott Pelley]

of art, wrote some algorithms that allowed the data from one object to evolve into the data of another object, to become yet a third object or a fourth object never before seen. And I think people found it deeply satisfying. It's one of the most popular images in the collection.

[Leslie Stahl]

Studies have found that typically museum visitors spend about 28 seconds looking at great works of art. For Unsupervised, Anadol says it was 38 minutes. But not everyone was quite so enamored.

[Scott Pelley]

It's like a giant lava lamp that you can't take your eyes off of.

[Leslie Stahl]

Jerry Saltz is the Pulitzer Prize winning art critic for New York Magazine.

[Scott Pelley]

It's like an Etch A Sketch he

[Leslie Stahl]

called unsupervised, a half million dollar screensaver splashing into. When people came in and they looked at this, they looked at it for 38 minutes. Isn't that the sign of success?

[Scott Pelley]

Popularity is not the sign of success. How long you spend with a work of art is not a sign of success so much as your willingness to get quiet within yourself, go to uncomfortable places, become comfortable in those places. Asking yourself questions in front of a Rafiq Adenol. You sit down, go into a stupor, and you don't have to think much. You go, oh, there goes a painting that looks a little like Renoir morphing into one that looks like Picasso morphing into an amoeba.

[Leslie Stahl]

It's something to look at. Is it art?

[Scott Pelley]

AI is art. AI will be art.

[Leslie Stahl]

But Salt says AI has a long way to go.

[Scott Pelley]

AI is one day old and we're already having conversations. I hate it.

[Leslie Stahl]

You love it.

[Scott Pelley]

It's good, it's bad, it's new, it's young. Most of what you see in AI Sharon is crap.

[Leslie Stahl]

Crap.

[Scott Pelley]

90% crap. But 90% of the art made during the Renaissance was also crap. Things take time. I think one has to recognize that works of art that challenge you are always going to be misunderstood by many at first.

[Leslie Stahl]

MoMA's Glenn Lowry says the skepticism around AI mirrors the reaction to the advent of photography 200 years ago, when suddenly

[Scott Pelley]

the human hand is removed from the making of an image. What does that mean? And I think artificial intelligence is analogous to that. But I don't think you can stop technology.

[Leslie Stahl]

Molly Crabapple is a New York based artist and author. She does not think AI should be welcomed into the art world. You've called this the greatest art heist in history. Yes. Why? Well, when we talk about art, heists Typically, we're talking about one painting being taken from a museum. Two, three. They stole billions and billions of images. Crabapple says museums, galleries, and auction houses shouldn't buy or display AI art trained on other artists work without their consent. She calls the popular air generators like this, which let users type in a prompt to create striking, sometimes surreal images. Corporate plagiarism bots. She says they're trained on art scraped from the web, including hers. This is an illustration Crabapple did of Aleppo, Syria. When we asked an AI image generator to create a drawing of a Syrian skyline and in the style of Molly Crabapple, it made this, in seconds, strikingly similar. Did anyone ever ask you, hey, can we feed your images into this system? Certainly not. No artist has been asked for their consent. No artist has received compensation. In fact, we don't even see credit. The AI companies have told lawmakers that what they're doing falls under fair use, a legal doctrine which allows copyrighted works to be used without permission under certain circumstances. They claim AI is studying and learning just like a human would. But a group of artists has filed a class action lawsuit against four of the AI companies that make art generators, accusing them of copyright infringement, among other things. There are some artists that have called using these images theft. What do you say to that? I completely agree. All my artist friends, I know what they mean. And as an artist, I only use my own data. Rafik Anadal told us since 2020, he's only worked with what he calls ethically sourced data sets. What do you mean by that? So this is the most important part of art making. With AI, it takes a lot of teamwork, a lot of thinking, research. We always start with permission. Then we know exactly where information comes from. How long has this been in the works? Now Anadol is building a 20,000 square foot museum dedicated to AI arts in downtown Los Angeles called Data Land. How big will the screens be in here? A massive canvas. To celebrate his optimism about technology, Anadol insists AI is not a threat, but a tool to create art. No human could create alone. There are some people that say AI can never truly create art because it lacks emotion, it lacks lived experience, and it lacks intent. Yes, these are all, I think, true. That's why I believe human machine collaboration. We are really completing that bridge where I feel like most likely where we are going as humanity and just be sure that it's done right and its shared rights and celebrate this new age of imagination. Get immersed in Anadol's AI work and decide for yourself, is it [e-mail]. Micah Ruzioni delivered one of the greatest upsets in American sports history. As captain of the 1980 U.S. olympic hockey team, Eruzioni led a squad of amateurs against the mighty Soviet Union and scored the game winning goal. We asked him to reflect on the lesson of that miracle on ice 46 years ago today. I think the lesson that our team showed in 1980 by winning an Olympic gold medal, by beating the Soviets, a team that nobody in the world thought we could beat, is a great example of what makes our country so great. Herb Brooks, our coach, called us a lunch pail hard hat group of guys, guys who came to work every single day, rolled up our sleeves, striving to be the best that we could be. And I think when you look back on 250 years in our country, you've seen moments like that where despite the challenges, despite the fact that nobody thinks we can achieve something, you find a way to do it. In 1980, we were looking for something to feel good about and it happened to be us, it happened to be our team. And people related to that. People come up to me to this day and they'll say, I remember where I was when we won. And I always go, we, I didn't know you were on the team. But that's what that moment meant. If you believe in something and you're willing to work for it, you can't accomplish it. And our team exemplified that. I'm Cecilia Vega. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the game time guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy and more with game time. Download the GameTime app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase term supply.

[Scott Pelley]

At Pluto TV, we're celebrating Black History Month with award winning films like Dreamgirls and Selma.

[Leslie Stahl]

We must make a massive demonstration and

[Scott Pelley]

full seasons of hit shows like Power. I got you Brilliant. Black entertainment is on Pluto tv streamed now pay never.