11/09/2025: The Family Farm, Collateral Damage, The Indomitable Margaret Atwood

0:07American farmers have long struggled with high costs and low prices for their crops. But this year, amid trade wars and tariffs, there is even greater uncertainty in the fields. I hear it's affecting your health. Yes. Four blood pressure pills a day. Three different medicines. Two years ago, none. What do you think about when you go to bed at night? What's going to be left in a year? Am I the one that broke what started in the late 1800s?

0:39Bill Whitaker:So this is your lab. Tonight, inside the labs where scientists are conducting life-saving research, they worry will become collateral damage in a political war between the White House and the nation's elite universities, including Harvard. The attack on universities is a tragic blunder. for all the foibles of universities, and there are many universities, research makes life better massively so. Why would you want to cripple it?

1:10Here she is taking a flamethrower to her own book. Margaret Atwood was firing back at would-be book burners. Her books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt, anti-Christian. The government put out an edict to all school boards saying that they couldn't have any books in the library that had either direct or indirect sex. What is indirect sex?

1:40I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. those stories, and in the last minute, what viewers thought about our interview with President Trump, tonight on 60 Minutes.

2:05American farmers have long struggled with high costs and low prices for their crops, but this year there is even greater uncertainty in the fields. China stopped buying all U.S. soybeans in May, retaliation for President Trump's tariffs. Many American farmers were left without their largest export market. President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping came to a temporary truce, but farmers told us that whatever happens next with tariffs, the problems on their farms continue to run deep. We went to rural Tennessee and Missouri and met soybean and cotton farmers who told us they fear they could be the generation to lose the family farm.

2:48Welcome to the 170th annual West Tennessee State Fair in Henderson, Tennessee. Since 1855, the West Tennessee State Fair has been the place where farmers from across the state come to show off their prized livestock and crops. It's where we met Jeffrey Daniels and Franklin Carmack, friends since high school. They grow cotton, soybeans, and corn on their family farms. As far back as I've been able to trace, my great-granddaddy's daddy was a sharecropper and then just got passed down through the generations. I guess you could say you've got farming in your blood. Yes, ma 'am. And it's got to be in your blood nowadays to keep doing it.

3:31Both of us are fifth-generation farmers. Instead of showing crops at the fair this year like other farmers, they are selling t-shirts made from the cotton they grow to offset their losses in the fields. They sold about 250 shirts. At$35 a piece, it was hardly enough. This year combined, they expect to lose nearly$800 ,000, leaving them in the red like many farmers across the country. Major row crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat, have not been profitable since at least 2022. You know, we're selling our commodities at the same price that we were selling them for and that our grandparents were selling them for in the 70s.

4:19So, you know, if you think about that, what can you go buy today that costs the same as it did in the 70s? Nothing. Nothing. Times are especially tough now because of what are called input costs. Everything a farmer needs to pull income from the ground, such as seed, equipment parts and fertilizer. Those costs have increased by more than 30 percent in the last five years, in part due to inflation and rising interest rates. The morale in the farming industry, not just farmers, is the lowest I've ever seen. Everybody's on edge. In the first six months of 2025, there were 57 percent more farm bankruptcies than the same period last year.

5:09Daniels and Carmack say tariffs have made this year even harder. Every time we go buy something now, you know, the tariffs, what I've seen, the tariffs pass down to the consumer. So if you have to go buy a new sprayer, like the one behind you. Anything that comes from China that's on that sprayer, there's a tariff, and they're just going to pass it directly to us. So the tariffs are hitting you more on the purchasing end than they are on the crop sales end. China primarily uses soybeans to feed its massive livestock industry, grinding the beans into powder for feed. Soybeans have long been the largest U.S.

5:49export crop worth nearly$25 billion last year until sales ground to a halt this past May. This weighs around 5 ,000 pounds. Wow. It's not just the soybean market. Cotton farmers have struggled with dwindling prices and decreased global demand as clothing manufacturers use more synthetic fabrics. Daniels and Carmack have had to take on second and third jobs, not just selling T-shirts, but driving trucks and repairing boats when they are not in their fields. You've said you have almost no equity left. It's getting down. It's getting low. Do you think you can make it another year? I don't know. I don't know.

6:34Do you just keep going, rolling the dice, hoping things will turn? I mean, it's not looking good. President Trump has promised a new bailout for American farmers, as much as$13 billion that he said would be paid for by the tariffs.

6:53Bill Whitaker:We're going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we're going to give it to our farmers, who are for a little while going to be hurt until it kicks in, the tariffs kick into their benefit. Like most farmers we spoke to, Daniels and Carmack say they'd rather work their fields than rely on taxpayer money. It will help pay some bills, but that's not fixing the problem. It's a band-aid when we need stitches. Can you wait? Can you wait this out? Farm families can't wait. I hear it's affecting your health. Yes. Four blood pressure pills a day. Three different medicines. Two years ago, none.

7:33What do you think about when you go to bed at night? Um... what's going to be left in a year, two years? Am I the one that broke what started in the late 1800s? Nearly all U.S. farms are family-owned, and farmers told us one of the greatest pressures they face today is maintaining that legacy, keeping their farms and the family in the face of mounting debts. We were surprised by how often our conversations turn to the issue of farmers taking their own lives, something that has plagued farming communities for generations. But farmers we spoke to told us concerns for their neighbors rise when crop sales drop.

8:22This is really odd for me. This video went viral in the agriculture community last year. Soybean farmer Alex Kerr showed a grim reality in Illinois, where he also sells used farm equipment. There are three tractors up here that I bought on auction. I'm not going to tell you which ones, but they came off of suicide. The reason that the farmers are no longer there, the reason I've got the tractors. The suicide rate among agriculture workers is three times higher than the general working population, according to the CDC's most recent data in 2021. Our reporting shows that many rural mental health groups are now seeing increased crisis calls to their hotlines.

9:13Do you feel like something's different right now? I do. And to put my finger on it, it's just it's really hard. But I know the numbers are going up. I know more people are affected. I know the prices of everything get higher and higher, and the stresses are added to it. Jolie Foreman runs Shelby County Cares, a nonprofit focused on the high number of suicides among farmers. The organization is named after her eastern Missouri county, where there are no stoplights and one therapist for 6 ,000 people. When you first started, you were seeing how many people take their own lives? So back in 22, if you calculated it out, it was averaging out to about a life every three months.

9:55And it was like, this has to stop. Though it's difficult to know how many lives have been saved, Foreman believes her program is working. Shelby County had the highest rate of suicide per capita in the state of Missouri. Suicide is so hard. We cannot really determine our success. We only can calculate the losses. But we do know that the numbers here had started to trend down. But in neighboring Macon County, Missouri, just a few miles away, there were two confirmed farm suicides this year. Research shows that for every suicide, 130 people are affected. Are you worried you could see an increase because of the situation?

10:37Yeah. And just knowing that the counties around us have had increased, you know, deaths by suicide, that's I think why the communities came together so well. Shelby County Cares connects farmers with therapists either in person or remotely. Foreman said walk-ins and calls to her office have increased since the beginning of the year. She's learned the best way to get farmers who are traditionally stoic and fiercely independent to talk is through their wives and their stomachs. Today we're going to make taco soup and crockpot ranch pork chops and pull barbecue chicken. Her way in is a regular gathering of farmers' wives and friends, where we met as they prepared meal kits.

11:21How many of you have been touched by suicide in your lives or your communities? Almost everybody at this table. They isolate. They bottle things up. They think they need to solve their own problems, and they're afraid to reach out, and they're afraid to lean on people. So they may feel that there's no other way or that somebody's going to be better off without them. It's very much this perception of you have to be strong, you have to be tough. You know, the weight of the world is ultimately on your shoulders. Do you know farmers personally who have taken their own lives? I do. I do. I mean, in my own family, we've definitely had tragedy and have lost some very important people in our own family.

12:07Come on, girl! Since the 1970s, Jolie's father-in-law, Brent Foreman, has lost three relatives, all farmers, to suicide. Two neighbors of the family farm also recently took their own lives. I've always had a fear for my kids and now my grandkids that we sure don't want history to repeat itself. You know, no matter how bad things get, things always have a way of working out. They'll always get better. Brent and his son, Gerald, grow more than 1 ,000 acres of soybeans and 650 acres of corn on a farm they manage themselves. They also raise more than 200 head of cattle, which means they are not reliant on soybeans as their sole source of income and can afford to wait for details on President Trump's new trade deal.

12:57I have a lot of faith in him and a lot of trust in him. And I think he's trying to make us the best deal he can for the whole country, but for the American farmer for the long term. Nearly 80 percent of voters in what are called farming-dependent counties voted for President Trump in the last election. I feel like a lot of American farmers, cattle people, a lot of people probably feel let down currently. Now, maybe there's a method to the madness. You know, that's still to be seen. Many are now taking their frustrations directly to Republican lawmakers at town halls across the country. I'm about ready to lose my farm.

13:42I am pissed, and I'm pissed at you. This fall, the White House promised a$40 billion bailout of Argentina and its president, Javier Millet, President Trump's political ally. Argentina also grows soybeans and is considered a competitor. During the trade war, China had purchased soybeans from Argentina instead of buying them from the U.S. The bailout enraged many American farmers who felt betrayed. President Trump said Argentina has got no money. They have no anything. They're fighting so hard to survive. Come to the farm. Come walk in my shoes.

14:24What would you show the president if he took you up on your offer to come and see the farm? I'd show him the daily life that I do from cleaning equipment, running equipment, dispatching trucks, and then I'd hand him a stack of bills. And then I would show him the receipts, what I'm getting from my crop, and he's a smart man. I'm not gonna take that away from him. And it won't take him to five minutes to say, this isn't going to work.

14:59Bill Whitaker:For generations, federal research funding to universities has fueled breakthroughs in medicine, technology, and national defense. Now, the White House is using that support as leverage, pressuring a dozen elite universities to align with President Trump's political agenda or risk losing funding. The government has used the power of the purse before to shape higher education, but President Trump's effort is unprecedented in scale. He's accused universities of anti-Semitism and liberal bias, demanding they do more to safeguard conservative voices. Some universities have cut deals to protect their funding, but Harvard, the nation's oldest University and the president's most prominent target has refused, citing academic freedom.

15:47Bill Whitaker:The threat has disrupted hundreds of Harvard research labs, forcing scientists to halt projects, lose staff, and fear their work is becoming collateral damage in a political fight that could jeopardize the future of American discovery itself. If you were talking to the American public, what would your research do for them? My research has the potential to prevent their daughters and their wives and their cousins from developing breast cancer. And I don't think any taxpayer would want to interfere with progress on a project like that. Joan Brugge is director of the Ludwig Cancer Center at Harvard Medical School.

16:30Bill Whitaker:For 50 years, she has applied for and won competitive federal grants that helped uncover how tumors form and resist treatment and discovered innovative therapies. Did I send you that note about... When her million-dollar annual funding was canceled last spring, she was leading a team that had identified the earliest precursors of breast cancer. The ultimate goal is to find a treatment that will eliminate those cells that carry the mutations. And in effect, prevent the cancer. Yes, prevent the cancer. Last spring, you got an email. What did it say? It listed two grants from the National Institute of Health and said that they were terminated.

17:14Bill Whitaker:Terminated? Terminated. What went through your mind? It was just like a gut punch. My knees buckled and I had to sit down because I just never imagined that research focused on a disease like cancer would be canceled for a reason that was unrelated to the quality of the research or the progress of the research. But this was across the board for issues relating to diversity and anti-Semitism at Harvard. Accusations of anti-Semitism at Harvard stem from student protests over the Gaza War that often were hostile to Israel. Harvard tightened rules around protests and commissioned reports on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

17:56Bill Whitaker:A survey on campus found that 40 percent of Jewish staff, faculty, and students who responded said they felt discriminated against because of their views. 71 percent of Muslim respondents said the same. President Trump has focused on anti-Semitism at Harvard. I think Harvard's a disgrace. I think what they did was a disgrace. They're obviously anti-Semitic. The president broadened his criticism and called for dismantling DEI and for audits on hiring, admissions, and academic programs. When Harvard refused federal oversight, the Trump administration froze more than$2 billion in grants, mostly for scientific and medical research.

18:41Bill Whitaker:So has your progress been stalled? So our progress has been significantly affected. Now I'm spending most of my time ringing doorbells to find alternate funding so that we can keep the lab going. This past April, Harvard sued the government to regain its funding. And in September, a federal judge sided with Harvard and ruled the funding freeze unlawful, saying the Trump administration used anti-Semitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault and ordered all the money restored. The funds have started to flow again, at least for now, But researchers say much damage has been done.

19:25Bill Whitaker:And the Trump administration has vowed to appeal the judge's ruling and block Harvard from receiving future grants. There's now this existential threat that this could happen again. What does that mean for science, that uncertainty? It will eventually draw people away from the United States to carry out research where that kind of threat and that kind of insecurity doesn't exist. You're this whole building? Bio-engineer Don Engber is founding director of the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Like the university's medical and public health schools, it is not on Harvard's main campus in Cambridge where protests erupted.

20:03Bill Whitaker:It's in Boston, three miles away across the Charles River. Did things get out of control at all these universities? Yes, I think they did. Have universities, including Harvard, made amends and made things better? The answer is yes. The Trump administration has accused Harvard of discrimination and says the federal government doesn't have to give money to the university. What do you say to that? The money that's given to the university for scientific research and medical research is not just given. We have to compete for it. And we are doing a service for the United States because they've identified needs that need to be met.

20:46Bill Whitaker:This is your lab. Yes, this is where we do the organ chip cultures. Ingber relies largely on federal funding for his work identifying new therapies using what he calls organs on chips. This breakthrough technology, tiny tissue-lined devices, can replace animal testing. So what does that allow you to do? We can study how the body normally works. We study response to drugs, response to toxins, drug delivery systems. Federal grants have made up almost half the university's research funding. Ingber and other scientists told us government support of university research, now under threat, is what has powered America's scientific supremacy in the world.

21:32Bill Whitaker:We are truly putting the brakes on scientific innovation in this country at a time where our ostensible adversary, China, is just going faster and faster and faster. You said that we are handing our future to China. On a silver platter, absolutely. If we can't be the leader, we're going to be the follower. Harvard and the federal government have been in settlement talks for months. And in a statement, the Department of Education told us the Trump administration is actively working toward a deal with Harvard that holds them accountable for egregious civil rights violations and discrimination on campus.

22:14Bill Whitaker:while restoring generous taxpayer dollar support to the institution. Harvard, in turn, says it's working to improve existing programs promoting ideological diversity. Harvard has not done enough to ensure a wide range of opinions being represented on campus. Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker has been a member of the faculty for 22 years and has been outspoken about what he says is liberal bias on campus. In your estimation, where has Harvard gone wrong? I think there have been too many incidents in which someone has expressed a controversial opinion and has been shamed or canceled. He points to biology lecturer Carol Hooven, who says she felt ostracized on campus after her remarks on Fox News in 2021 sparked controversy.

23:07And the facts are that there are, in fact, two sexes. There are male and female.

23:11Bill Whitaker:She has said the criticism and pushback on campus drove her to resign. President Trump has described Harvard as a liberal mess, that it has been hiring almost all woke, radical, left idiots and bird brains. The language is a bit harsh, but does he have a point here? Not there, no. I do not agree with that. I think there's a grain of truth in that. What's the grain of truth? I think there should be more voices on the right at Harvard. I don't want Donald Trump to decide who those people are going to be or how many we should have. You do have the president, and you have lots of supporters of the president who say, we don't like what they're doing there at Harvard, so why should my tax dollars go to support its research?

23:59Bill Whitaker:Do you want Alzheimer's to be cured? Do you want cancer treatments for kids? Do you want treatments for people with paralysis? Consider Harvard chemist and molecular biologist David Liu, a winner of this year's breakthrough prize, often called the Oscars of science. To inject into mice. He says the instability of federal funding is making it difficult for him to retain and attract researchers. The funding is restored. Does that fix the problem? Science research, at the cutting edge especially, is a slow-moving process. When you disrupt that process, it can take years. You have to hire those people back.

24:40You have to generate those samples, many of which are perishable.

24:45Bill Whitaker:David Liu and his team invented gene editing tools that can correct and rewrite defective genes. Here's a small segment of the human genome. You have six billion of these letters. This sequence causes brain disease. It's caused by these four extra letters. So a prime editor finds that sequence and then replaces it. And you get to type in the sequence that you want to replace it with. Just fix it. Fix it at the root cause. Gene editing technologies invented in David Lu's labs at Harvard and here at the nonprofit Broad Institute could one day help hundreds of millions worldwide with genetic diseases like sickle cell and muscular dystrophy.

25:29Bill Whitaker:This is a tube of the DNA instructions that finds a DNA sequence of our choosing. Just that unassuming clear liquid. That's right. We can fix the mutation, fix the disease, and hopefully never have to treat the patient again. It was this tiny little syringe. And it was just one injection of this little vial. Just one injection of this tiny little vial. And that was it. Alyssa Tapley, who lives outside London, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. She endured a year of failed treatments, chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, and her doctors ran out of options. I was 13 when I was told that I was going to die.

26:20Bill Whitaker:And they're talking about end-of-life care? Yep. And I said, please don't give up on me because I haven't done anything with my life. I'm just going to be this kid who died because of cancer. Her doctor read about Professor Liu's novel gene editing research and thought it might, just might, help Alyssa. Ready for yourself? She became the first human to try the experimental treatment made possible by U.S. federal funding. I knew if I did it, even if it didn't end up working, it would end up making a difference to somebody else's life. Now 16, she vividly remembers the day her doctor told her the experimental treatment had worked.