Anderson Cooper's emotional farewell to 60 Minutes after 20 years

60 minutes overtime.

Okay, everyone.Matt, you good?You've been traveling world first for like 20 years.

Has it been 20 years?Over 20 years.More than 20 years.More than 20 years.Yeah, it's been a hell of a ride.That's incredible.

Really?Did people try to kill you?How much more evidence do you need?Come on.Did any of that make sense to you?Why should people trust you?

I mean, who elected you and Sam Altman?No one.

No one.Honestly, no one.

Why would we talk about this?It's pretty cutting.We're on our way to a family of 21 gorillas.You can hear the sound of butterfly wings.Yeah.Do I call you lady?

Do I call you gaga?No, call me gaga.What are you wearing today?

I just didn't want to wear clothes today.I wrote to get over a breakup.I didn't write it being like, this is going to be a hit.

You wrote it... to help you get over something.

Yeah.

How do you even read this?I know what it says, I guess.

What just happened?Aim on the front sight.

Go!

I don't feel like James Bond yet.

I so just want to like take off with it.That is cool.

Working.

Some things never end.

Yeah.So this is crazy.This is my last shoot for 60 Minutes.60 Minutes has always been a place, at least for me, that You get to step into somebody else's shoes.You get to see things through their eyes and see what their struggles are and what they are facing.And you learn from that.

This is 60 Minutes.It's a kind of a magazine for television.

I'm Morley Safer.I grew up watching 60 Minutes.I was a weird little kid.I liked watching news after my dad died.there was a lot of silence in my house, and we would watch the news over dinner.You know something?

Like, the old -time CBS correspondents, I mean, I knew them all by name.I didn't know them personally, but I felt like I did.I felt like, as a kid, I was getting a kind of a look at adulthood, and I was learning stuff.

Sit down, get to work.

You never knew what you were going to get, but you were willing to go for the ride because you trusted the people on it that it was going to be a good story.Would I lie?

No.

For me, what was great about 60 Minutes was the mix of stories, like a hard -hitting piece of journalism, an investigative report.

The bad news is, is we're 60 Minutes.The prosecution says you're a conman, a thief.

Mike Wallace going into a garage and people scattering and Morally Safer.I mean, I remember watching old clips of Morally Safer.He was such a wordsmith.I mean, nobody saw it like Bob Simon did.

There is no place on earth closer to heaven than Mount Athos.

And suddenly to be in the halls of 60 Minutes working on a story, I could not believe that I was on 60 Minutes.And then I actually, after Bob Simon died, I was given his office, and his daughter, Tanya, who's now the executive producer of 60 Minutes, left a bottle of scotch that he had had, and it's still in my office.There's like a little bit left, but a huge popsicle.But to be in the same hallway with Bob Simon was just extraordinary, and to work with all the people he worked with.

That's it.

Yeah, it's been the honor of a life.

You ate, buddy?

The thing is, it's never felt like work.

I want to introduce you to my friend Anderson.

It's felt like you're stepping into people's lives, and you're invited into people's homes.You're invited into their struggles.You're invited into whatever it is that has brought them to Beyond 60 Minutes.Do you get greeted like that every time you come?Pretty much, yeah.Sometimes it's something wonderful they've done.

Sometimes something terrible that's happened to them.

That's the day we buried Hirsch.

And it doesn't feel like work.It feels like making a human connection with somebody, being able to ask somebody, you know, deeply personal questions and having conversations with people.It's a privilege.It's incredible.

This is the group already going to the gas chamber.

Where are you in this picture?

I am right here.

This is you?

That's me right here.

I interviewed a woman named Irene Weiss, who at the time was 93, Holocaust survivor, sent to Auschwitz in the waning days, the last year of the war.And she, her whole family was wiped out.She was actually photographed on a platform when she was 13 years old after Mengele had separated her little sister from her.And she's looking off to where her sister has been taken.There was just this moment in the interview where I asked her if she was still that 13 -year -old girl.Do you still feel that little girl at times?

Or did you bury her early on?

No, that's really a very good question.I am stuck there.I am really stuck there.That's really the biggest fight.How could that have happened to my family?

I found that extraordinary.I found her extraordinary.There's moments in interviews that you just know when you're sitting there, the cameras dissolve away and you're just having this conversation one -on -one with somebody.I did a piece on Donald Sutherland, the actor, who had an incredible career.He talked about something his mother had once said to him.

I said, mother, am I good looking?And my mother looked at me and went, your face has character, Donald.

And you could see the pain that he still carried about that.Did what she say stayed with you?

Not really, just for 65, 66 years.

I wasn't doing it so that this would happen.I was doing it because I loved it.

And you still love to play?Oh, dude, yeah.There's so many beautiful moments in interviews where you're having a real conversation with somebody.

I'm just going to go and do whatever I want to do.

Your face lights up when you talk about it.Because I'm excited.Because, you know, it's something new.

I might try, like, a chorus.

I don't go out of my way to try to interview very well -known people, but I do try to, I like to interview people who I think are doing something interesting and are just compelling characters.Ian Brannan and his wife, Marilena, go around the world looking for music.What are you looking for?Singing from the heart.

The whole world should know about the Malawi Mouse Boys.They are great musicians.

I've done a number of stories in Africa, which I always think about.

How many of you have a lawyer?

Two.Three.I've done two pieces in prison for 60 Minutes.One, a piece out of an incredible organization called Justice Defenders, started by this guy, Alexander McLean.

It's the poorest people in our societies who disproportionately feel the impact of the law.

He's created this incredible program to help incarcerated people in Kenya and Uganda and African prisons learn about the law so that they can represent them.

Don't just lie low.Don't keep quiet.It might affect your defense or your case.

So six women were attacked on Friday.

There's a lot of stories that we do that are not easy to watch.One of them was the problem of sexual violence against women in eastern Congo.

They just cut hair at many places.With a machete?Yeah.

They come here seeking refuge, a safe haven, but the truth is, in Congo, for women, there's no such thing.

You know, it's a tough story to tell, and it's not something that makes headlines on a daily basis, though it probably should, because so many people are affected.

All these women have been raped.

Yeah.They've all been patients of yours.

When a woman is raped, it's not just her that's raped.It's the entire community that's destroyed.

That's the great thing about Six Minutes, is that if you pitch a story of like, I think this is a really important story, let's go and do it, they'll say yes.

In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looking like they're half dead.It's a spectacular response.

No kids need it more than these children in Niger.I did a story on child malnutrition and this incredible product called Plumpy Nut, which has helped bring kids back from the brink of death.

Plumpy Nut is a remarkably simple concoction.It's basically peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, enriched with vitamins and minerals.

A daily dose costs about a dollar.There's a guy who saw the 60 Minutes Plumpy Nut story, and it changed his life.He decided to build a factory in a small town in rural Georgia.to make this product, a very similar product, and he's been able to feed millions of children all around the world because he saw that story.I've done a lot of, I don't know if dangerous is the right words, or just dumb things for 60 Minutes.

We know there's at least one crocodile in this area because we saw the ripples on the water.

I went diving with Nile crocodiles, which I don't think is really a thing.

First, I can't see anything.But then, out of the darkness, on the floor of the cave, just as Brad warned, I see that gleaming row of white teeth.

Unlike great white sharks, Nile crocodiles do actually want to kill you, it seems, and kill a lot of people every year.For me, in my mind, when I was on this shoot, the whole thing was, you know, can we get this?Can we get into the right caves?Can we get the good shots?It was never, should we?

Literally looking at it right in the face.

I literally say at one point, you know, Crocodile's vision isn't so great looking forward.

So this is actually a relatively safe place to be.

I don't think that was true.

I've dived now many times for 60 minutes, so I am eternally, because I'm talking underwater like an idiot, because I have a full face mask, I can talk underwater.And no one else is talking underwater.I'm sucking in more oxygen than anybody else.

And so I've run out of oxygen underwater so many times for 60 minutes.

The way I do all this stuff is I've said, Bad things don't happen to people on TV, which is ridiculous, of course.And they do.They happen all the time.I got blinded on a 60 -minute story, which is among the stupidest things I've ever done.And I've done a lot of stupid things.We were doing Garrett McNamara, big wave surfer, awesome guy.

I love him.I've done two stories involving Garrett.We went to Nazaré, Portugal, where the big waves are.He took me out on jet skis into these big waves.And so we're out for hours on the water, and I'm interviewing him, and I'm talking s*** with him and, like, getting him to take silly risks and zoom the jet ski through these rough areas.And we have a great shoot.

We have another shoot the next morning, and I wake up in the middle of the night.with excruciating pain in my eyes, and I am blind.I cannot see.It turns out the UV light bouncing off the water had burned out my corneas, and we had to cancel the whole shoot.And yeah, I should have worn sunglasses.So cool.

The bar at 60 Minutes has always been so high to get a story on the air.Everybody works at 60 Minutes, is the best in their profession, the best at what they do, the best sound technician, the best camera person, the best producers, associate producers, the best editors.And so the bar is high.Because when you're doing a six -minute story, you're remembering the stories that you saw Bob Simon do when you were a kid.

It's the sound of the wild here.About how many cases are there here?It's roughly about half a million.

You're remembering the stories you saw Mike Wallace and Morley Safer do, or Ed Bradley.Bob Dylan was drinking two bottles of red wine a day, sometimes smoking 30 packs of cigarettes.Did you drink two bottles of wine and smoke 30 packs of cigarettes?The smoking I did, the wine I held back on.That is the bar you are trying to live up to.That is the bar you're trying to cross.

And now, CNN's Anderson Cooper on assignment for 60 Minutes.

The whole time I've done pieces at 60 Minutes, my full -time job has been over at CNN and still is, and it's been really challenging to do the kind of work you need to do to have a great 60 Minutes piece on.You know, CNN doesn't like it if I take a lot of time off to work on a 60 Minutes piece, so I've worked mostly for 60 Minutes on weekends.You know, my vacation time at CNN has been working on 60 Minutes pieces, and I've loved it, but it's been tough.I always imagine, like, okay, when I don't want to be in the daily news grind, I'd love to just tell 60 Minutes stories.But when I had kids, The reality of having kids is different than anything you can kind of imagine.I was shooting in South Africa recently, and Jono, a 60 Minutes cameraman, told me he remembers the moment his seven -year -old son, they were walking to school and holding his hand.

He remembers the moment his son took his hand out of his dad's hand.And Jono didn't know it in that moment, but that was the last time his son let him hold his hand walking to school.And I almost started to cry when he told me that, because I'm in South Africa.and my kid is going to school that day, and I'm not there.I've got a four -year -old and a just now six -year -old, and I want to spend as much time with them as I can while they still want to spend time with me.And those days, that clock is ticking, I think.

I don't think the reality has really hit me that I'm not going to be doing this any longer.You know, to give up something you've watched since you were a kid, yeah, I will miss this.I hope 60 minutes remains 60 minutes.There's very few things that have been around for as long as 60 Minutes has and maintain the quality that it has.And things can always evolve and change.And I think that's awesome.

And things should evolve and change.But I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains.

I'm Bill Whitaker with 60 Minutes.

Yes.I think the independence of 60 Minutes has been critical.

Congressman?Steve Crawford, 60 Minutes.We're in southern Israel.

I think also the veryof stories.

Why did you decide to come to the United States?This Chinese boat rammed us intentionally.

And I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of 60 Minutes.

I cannot get over how extensive and intensive this process is.

When you see a 60 Minutes story and you're like, that was a really good story.It was a good story because it requires time, it requires patience, it requires money.

Yeah, I'm not sure I can get much closer than this.

And it requires an appreciation of the history and the sacrifices and the hard work of the people here.And I hope that's known and honored and valued and continues.I hope 60 Minutes is around for when my kids grow up and have kids of their own and they can watch it with their kids.I'm Mike Wallace.I'm Morley Safer.

I'm Diane Sawyer.

I'm Ed Bradley.

I'm Leslie Stahl.

I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.That sounds ridiculous, I'm sorry.

I'm Anderson Cooper.

Doing the I'ms is weird, like Mike Wallace actually made fun of me about my first I'ms, because I'd watched the I'ms for so many years as a kid, and so I remember the first time I did the I'm Anderson Cooper, and you do it three times usually.I think I had to do it like 20 times, because I'm just somebody who's always mumbled my own name, and then you think like, is it, I'm Anderson Cooper, I'm Anderson Cooper, I'm Anderson Cooper, And you end up sounding just like a complete idiot.And then somebody just picks one.

I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.

So yeah, for the last time.

Three in a row, stand by, stand by.

I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.I'm Anderson Cooper.