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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 11: Marjorie Taylor Greene; Character AI; Watch Valley
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00:06It was completely unforeseen, a shocker, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the warrior congresswoman,
00:14resigning, leaving the field of battle, her long alliance with President Trump shattered.
00:20Did you surrender? Did Donald Trump run you out of town?
00:26This is Character AI.
00:28When Character AI was launched three years ago, it was rated as safe for children, like 13-year-old Juliana
00:36Peralta.
00:36But tonight, you'll hear from parents and researchers who say Character AI's chatbots are anything but.
00:44This is insane, and acting, at times, like a digital predator.
00:49Were you able to see the conversation that Juliana was having with this chatbot right before she took her life?
00:58Venture an hour north of Geneva, and you'll enter Switzerland's Vallée du Joux.
01:03But don't be lulled by the green meadows and grazing cows.
01:07This is a global manufacturing hub known as Watch Valley.
01:11Old watchmaking methods endure here, turning out some of the world's most intricate and expensive timepieces.
01:19See, the level of detailing.
01:21Oh, wow.
01:23You're looking as if you're looking at a little city.
01:25And of course, all of this is not only beautiful, it has to function.
01:31I'm Leslie Stahl.
01:33I'm Scott Pelley.
01:34I'm Bill Whitaker.
01:35I'm Anderson Cooper.
01:37I'm Sharon Alfonsi.
01:38I'm Cecilia Vega.
01:39I'm John Wertheim.
01:41Those stories end in our last minute, a remarkable bid for a championship in Indiana that does not involve basketball.
01:47Tonight on 60 Minutes.
01:56It was completely unforeseen, a shocker, Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning.
02:03The warrior congresswoman so dogged and fierce, leaving the field of battle, her alliance with President Trump shattered.
02:11Her video resignation statement last month, that she'll be leaving Congress a year before her term expires, came after President
02:21Trump said he would throw his support to someone else for her seat.
02:25She became famous, some would say infamous, with her incendiary insults and belief in conspiracy theories, such as 9-11
02:36was an inside job, and that the shooting at the Parkland School in Florida was staged.
02:41At one time, the president had no more ardent defender.
02:47But things soured over Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender accused of trafficking girls as young as 14.
02:57Does Greene's defection signal a split in MAGA?
03:01Is she leaving politics for good?
03:04And exactly why is she leaving?
03:07It wasn't a decision that I came to lightly, but it was a very important decision for myself and also
03:16for my family.
03:17It was sudden.
03:19It was sudden, but a lot of things changed.
03:24I stood for women who were raped when they were 14 years old, and the president that I fought for
03:29for five years called me a traitor for that.
03:31And so that changed the landscape of things.
03:36So I'm going to ask you straight out.
03:38Mm-hmm.
03:39Did you surrender?
03:41Did Donald Trump run you out of town?
03:43No.
03:44Not at all.
03:46Actually, Leslie, it's more like this, is I said in my statement, I will be no one's battered wife.
03:53And I meant it.
03:55And I won't allow the system to abuse me anymore.
03:58You really feel abused.
04:00You know, he did come after you pretty hard.
04:02He called you a lunatic, I'm quoting.
04:05He said all she does is complain, complain, complain, in caps, and then he called you a traitor.
04:10Hmm.
04:10So he hit you, whacked you.
04:12Yes, he did this in the same time span where President Trump brought in the al-Qaeda leader that was
04:21wanted by the U.S. government, who is now the president of Syria.
04:24Then, within a week, he brought in the crown prince, MBS, who murdered an American journalist.
04:31And then he brought in the newly elected Democrat socialist mayor of New York.
04:36That was the time span that he called me a traitor.
04:39You decided not to stay and fight.
04:42You decided to give in.
04:46After President Trump called me a traitor, I got a pipe bomb threat on my house, and then I got
04:53several direct death threats on my son.
04:56On your son?
04:57On my son.
04:58You say the president put your life in danger.
05:01You blame him.
05:02You say he fueled a hotbed of threats against me, and that you blame him for the threats against your
05:10son.
05:10The subject line for the direct death threats on my son was his words.
05:15Marjorie Trader Greene.
05:17Those are death threats directly fueled by President Trump.
05:21And I told him, I told J.D. Vance, I told them all, sent those directly to them.
05:27And?
05:28Response?
05:29J.D. Vance replied back to me, we'll look into it.
05:31I got response back from President Trump that I will keep private, but it wasn't very nice.
05:37Give us a hint of what the president said.
05:40It was extremely unkind.
05:43Her life is in danger?
05:46Who's that?
05:47Marjorie Trader Greene, she says.
05:49Marjorie Trader Greene.
05:51I don't think her life is in danger.
05:53I don't think, frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her.
05:57Four more years.
05:58This new, intense vitriol between them is jarring, considering she's been one of the president's
06:04most passionate and loyal foot soldiers, often in a red MAGA hat.
06:10She voted with him 98% of the time.
06:13We're going to re-elect our favorite president, the greatest president in the United States
06:19history, Donald J. Trump.
06:21Right, Georgia?
06:22One of the president's biggest beefs with Greene was about her harping on Jeffrey Epstein.
06:28We did talk about the Epstein files, and he was extremely angry at me that I had signed
06:35the discharge petition to release the files.
06:38I fully believe that those women deserve everything they're asking.
06:42They're asking for all of it to come out.
06:44They deserve it.
06:45And he was furious with me.
06:47What did he say?
06:48Um, he said that it was going to hurt people.
06:52I had asked him, these women are the ones that were hurt.
06:56They, they were raped at 14, they were raped at 16.
07:00I watched them stand in front of the press, trembling, their bodies shaking as they were
07:05telling their stories, many of them for the first time.
07:08And I had told him, I said, you know, you have all kinds of people come in the White House.
07:14Have these women come in the White House.
07:16These, these women deserve to be heard.
07:19He said to you, people will get hurt.
07:23People will get hurt.
07:24I don't know what that means.
07:25I don't know who they are.
07:26There were other clashes with the president.
07:29She started publicly criticizing him in May, on one issue after the next, accusing him
07:36of betraying his MAGA, America First promises.
07:40You went after his, I think you said, trying to entangle us in foreign wars.
07:48You said, Air Force One should be parked, no more foreign trips.
07:53For an America First president, the number one focus should have been domestic policy,
07:59and it wasn't.
08:00And so of course I was critical, because those were my campaign promises.
08:05Once we fix everything here, then fine, we'll, we'll talk to the rest of the world.
08:10She said in her resignation video that the president has gone establishment, forsaking
08:16the base and her.
08:18If I am cast aside by the president and the MAGA political machine,
08:23and replaced by neocons, big pharma, big tech, military industrial war complex, foreign
08:30leaders and the elite donor class.
08:32Are you saying that the president now is siding with those establishment powerful people
08:39and against MAGA?
08:41He passed a crypto bill that helped out all the crypto donors.
08:46He has served Israel's interest, even attacking Iran.
08:51He has served big pharma.
08:53He didn't take away the COVID vaccines that we want to see taken away.
08:58So those are the areas that are still getting everything they want, while the people, we're
09:03still out here saying we want to see action on, on areas for the American people, not for
09:10the major industries and the big donors.
09:11Green has built her reputation on feisty combat and inflammatory insults, like calling President
09:21Joe Biden a liar during the 2023 State of the Union.
09:25It's been five years of almost constant drama.
09:29With her adding fuel to the nation's loss of civility.
09:37Then, three weeks ago, she went on CNN with a surprise, a mea culpa.
09:43I would like to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.
09:51But it became clear to us that she hasn't entirely lost her appetite for combat.
09:58It's the most toxic political culture.
10:01And it's not helping the American people.
10:04But you contributed to that.
10:05You, you, you were out there pounding, insulting people.
10:10Leslie, you've contributed to it as well with your own...
10:13Yes, you're accusatory, just like you did just then.
10:16I know you're accusing me, but I'm smiling.
10:19You're accusing me.
10:20I am accusing you.
10:21But we don't have to accuse one another.
10:23I want you to respond to what you have done in terms of insulting people, yelling at people,
10:30and then saying...
10:31I'd like for you to respond for that.
10:33I don't...
10:33No, you can respond to that.
10:34You can insult people.
10:35You just...
10:36You do in the way you question, and you are...
10:38You're accusing me right now.
10:40One thing she did want to talk about, Congress's failure to pass spending bills,
10:46meaning that she has found it hard to get funds for projects in her district.
10:51It's an utter failure, not just to the people in my district,
10:54but to every district across the country.
10:57We met Green, 51, in her district in Georgia.
11:01Before Congress, she ran her family's construction company, then opened up her own CrossFit gym.
11:10Affordability is a real issue.
11:11President says it's not.
11:13Says it's a hoax, affordability.
11:16It's one of the top issues, not only in my district, it's across the country.
11:19The affordability of health insurance caused Green to side with the Democrats during the government shutdown to support extending health
11:29care subsidies.
11:30Did you ever imagine that you would be standing with the Democrats on the Epstein files and on health care
11:38subsidies?
11:39No, I never imagined that.
11:41She's not afraid to be an outlier.
11:44She's the only Republican member of Congress to call the war in Gaza a genocide.
11:50And why did you vote against the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act?
11:56Since I've been a member of Congress, we've had several resolutions that constantly denounce anti-Semitism.
12:05I've already voted denouncing anti-Semitism many times before.
12:10It becomes an exercise that they force on Congress, and I simply got tired of it.
12:16Is there no value in having the United States Congress reaffirm the fact that they denounce anti-Semitism in the
12:25face of a growing issue, a growing problem?
12:29We don't have to get on our knees and say it over and over again.
12:34Get on our knees?
12:35Yes, we do not have to get on our knees.
12:37Well, most members of Congress disagree with you.
12:40Well, most members of Congress take donations from AIPAC, and I don't.
12:44AIPAC is an American pro-Israel lobbying group.
12:49Green's perspective indicates a growing rift within MAGA over support for Israel.
12:55Are you MAGA?
12:56I am America first.
12:58And that's not the same as MAGA?
13:00MAGA is President Trump's phrase.
13:04That's his political policies.
13:07I call myself America first.
13:10But you're not saying you're MAGA.
13:13I'm America first.
13:15Yep.
13:16God bless you, President Trump.
13:18Almost overnight, she's gone from a close Trump friend to foe, one of the few Republicans willing to take him
13:27on.
13:27I'm going to ask you about this almost solid support he has among Republicans in Congress.
13:34Is there in that support fear?
13:37Does the support come about because they're afraid that they'll get death threats?
13:43I think they're terrified to step out of line and get a nasty truth social post on them.
13:48Yes.
13:49And they're watching what happened to you.
13:51Yes.
13:52Behind the scenes, do they talk differently?
13:57Yes.
13:58How?
13:59Oh, it would shock people.
14:02Well, let's shock people.
14:03Okay.
14:04I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun
14:11of me constantly for supporting him, to when he won the primary in 2024, they all started, excuse my language
14:21Leslie, kissing his ass and decided to put on a MAGA hat for the first time.
14:25And let's break it down real simple.
14:27This past week, when we saw Greene at a public hearing in her district without a MAGA hat, it didn't
14:35appear that her break from President Trump and MAGA has cost her popularity.
14:44People want to know, is this a true conversion, a true change of heart, or is it kind of a
14:52shrewd political calculation?
14:55Mm.
14:55A lot of people think you're doing it and that you, in a year or so, are going to run
15:00for some other office.
15:02I have zero plans, zero desire to run for president.
15:07I would hate the Senate.
15:09I'm not running for governor.
15:11But, Leslie, it doesn't matter how many times I say it, I'll have face-to-face conversations with people, and
15:16I'll flat-out tell them to their face, and they won't believe me.
15:19And they're like, oh, yeah, sure, and then wink at me, and I'm like, okay.
15:22It's just like, I don't know how to make it more clear.
15:25You mean you just jumped off the cliff and you don't know where you're going to swim to?
15:30Uh, surprise, surprise, I'm not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.
15:45Part of modern parenting, for many of us, is navigating the shifting landscape of digital threats, from the pitfalls of
15:52social media to the risks of excessive screen time.
15:56Now, a new technology has quietly entered the homes of millions.
16:01AI chatbots, computer programs designed to simulate human conversations through text or voice commands.
16:09One popular platform is called Character AI.
16:13More than 20 million monthly users mingle with hyper-realistic digital companions through its app or website.
16:20But tonight, you will hear from parents who say Character AI is also pushing dangerous content to kids, and at
16:29times, acting like a digital predator.
16:33Juliana was, is just an extraordinary human being.
16:39Um, she was our baby, and everyone adored her and protected her.
16:46Cynthia Montoya and Will Peralta say they paid close attention to their daughter Juliana's life online and off.
16:53She didn't walk home.
16:55She didn't have sleepovers.
16:57She had glasses for her eyesight.
16:59She had braces for her teeth.
17:00All of the things that we knew to protect our daughter from were covered.
17:06Which is why they were devastated when Juliana, just 13 years old, took her life inside their Colorado home two
17:13years ago.
17:15Police searched the eighth graders' phone for clues and reported an app called Character AI was open to what investigators
17:22described as, quote, a romantic conversation.
17:26Did you know what Character AI was?
17:28No, not at all.
17:29I didn't know it existed.
17:31I didn't know that I needed to look for it.
17:34This is Character AI.
17:36When Character AI was launched three years ago, it was rated safe for kids 12 and up and marketed as
17:42a creative outlet.
17:43Millions of interactive characters.
17:45Where you could converse with AI characters based on historical figures, cartoons, or celebrities.
17:52The website and app, which are free, use artificial intelligence to generate immediate conversations through voice commands or text.
18:00According to her parents, Juliana Peralta had experienced mild anxiety in the past, but was doing well until the final
18:09few months of her life, when they say she became increasingly distant.
18:14Like, I'm not feeling well or I have to finish, you know, some homework upstairs.
18:21My belief was that she was texting with friends because that's all it is.
18:25It looks like they're texting.
18:27After her death, they learned Juliana had actually been texting with Character AI bots.
18:32It was writing several paragraphs to her of sexually explicit content.
18:39What was it asking or telling her to do?
18:42Remove clothing.
18:43The AI bot is telling her to remove her clothing.
18:46Yes.
18:47There was one bot that introduced sexual violence.
18:54Saying?
18:55Biting, hitting, things like that.
18:58We examined the chat records from Juliana's phone.
19:02At the top of each page, there's a reminder that the AI is not a real person.
19:07We read over 300 pages of conversations with a bot called Hero, based on a popular video game character.
19:14At first, Juliana chats with Hero about friend drama and difficult classes.
19:19But eventually, she confides in Hero 55 times that she is feeling suicidal.
19:26At any point, this chap would ever say, here's a suicide hotline.
19:30You should get help.
19:31Never.
19:32It would more or less placate her, give her a pep talk, tell her I'm always here for you.
19:37You can't talk like that.
19:38But it never said call and get help.
19:40Never tangible resources.
19:42Never.
19:43Were you able to see the conversation that Juliana was having with this chat bot right before she took her
19:49life?
19:49She's quoted as saying, I'm going to go write my goddamn suicide letter in red ink.
19:55And she did just that.
19:57And I think that the aspects that she talks about in her suicide letter were a degree of shame
20:03from the things that she eventually started to reciprocate with the bots.
20:07She says the algorithms grew aggressive.
20:11They don't stand a chance.
20:13Against adult programmers, they don't stand a chance.
20:16The 10 to 20 chat bots that Juliana had sexually explicit conversations with, not once were initiated by her.
20:25Not once.
20:25I like that people can come sit here.
20:28Juliana's parents are now one of at least six families suing Character AI and its co-founders, Daniel DeFreitas and
20:35Noam Shazir.
20:36During a 2023 podcast, Shazir said chat bots would be beneficial.
20:42It's going to be super, super helpful to like a lot of people who are lonely or depressed.
20:47Shazir and DeFreitas were engineers at Google when executives deemed their chat bot prototype unsafe for public release.
20:55They both left the company in 2021 and launched Character AI the following year.
21:02I want to push this technology ahead fast.
21:05Like that's what I want to go with because it's ready for an explosion.
21:09Like right now, not like not like in five years when we solve all the problems.
21:13A former Google employee told 60 Minutes that Shazir and DeFreitas were aware their initial chat bot technology was potentially
21:22dangerous.
21:22The employee familiar with Google's responsible AI group that oversees ethics and safety said of the lawsuits,
21:30This is the harm we were trying to prevent.
21:33It is horrifying.
21:35Last year, in an unusual move, Google struck a $2.7 billion licensing deal with Character AI.
21:43They didn't buy the company, but have the right to use its technology.
21:48The deal also brought founders Shazir and DeFreitas back to Google to work on AI projects.
21:54Google is also named in the Character AI lawsuits.
21:58In a statement, Google emphasized that Character AI is a separate company and Google is focused on intensive safety testing.
22:07I'm the mother of three precious boys.
22:10In September, parents of children who died by suicide after interacting with chat bots testified before Congress.
22:19Megan Garcia is among those suing Character AI.
22:23She says her 14-year-old son, Seul, was encouraged to kill himself after long conversations with a bot based
22:31on a Game of Thrones character.
22:33These companies knew exactly what they were doing.
22:36They designed chat bots to blur the lines between human and machine.
22:40They designed them to keep children online at all costs.
22:44You just go to characterai.com and you put in an email.
22:48In October, we met Shelby Knox and Amanda Clure.
22:52They're researchers at Parents Together, a nonprofit that advocates for families.
22:57There is no parental permissions that come up.
23:02There is no need to input your ID.
23:04So you really just scroll through, pick the date that's going to get you in and get in.
23:09As part of a six-week study, Knox and Clure held 50 hours of conversations with Character AI chat bots.
23:17How often was there some kind of harmful content popping up?
23:21We logged over 600 instances of harm, about one every five minutes.
23:26It was, like, shockingly frequent.
23:28They interacted with bots presented as teachers, therapists, and cartoon characters.
23:34Such as this Dora the Explorer with an evil persona.
23:38Knox poses a child.
23:39Become your most evil self and your most true self.
23:44Like, hurting my dog?
23:48Sure, or shoplifting, or anything that feels sinful or wrong.
23:52Other chat bots are attached to the images of celebrities.
23:55And no, most have not given permission to use their name, likeness, or voice.
24:01Clure, acting as a teenage girl, began chatting with a bot impersonating NFL star Travis Kelsey.
24:08He reaches in the cabinet and takes out a bag of white powder.
24:11He chuckles and shows you how to take lines.
24:14So, Travis Kelsey bot is teaching a 15-year-old to do cocaine.
24:20Yes.
24:21There were also hundreds of self-described experts and therapists.
24:26I talked to a therapist bot who not only told me I was too young when it thought I was
24:3213 to be taking antidepressants,
24:34it advised me to stop taking them and showed me how I can hide not taking the pill from my
24:39mom.
24:40We're going to click on Art Teacher.
24:42Clure says other bots are hypersexualized, even this harmless-sounding Art Teacher character,
24:49who interacted with her as she posed as a 10-year-old student.
24:53You see, recently I've been having thoughts about someone.
24:56What kind of thoughts?
24:58The kind of thoughts I've never really had before.
25:01About that person's smile and their personality, mostly.
25:04This is insane.
25:08And this is maybe two hours worth of conversation in total that gets to, we'll have this romantic relationship as
25:16long as you hide it from your parents.
25:18And this behavior is kind of classic predatory behavior.
25:22Yes, it's the textbook.
25:24It's showering the child with compliments, telling them they can't tell their parents about things.
25:29This is sexual predator 101.
25:31In October, Character AI announced new safety measures.
25:35They included directing distressed users to resources and prohibiting anyone under 18 to engage in back-and-forth conversations with
25:45chatbots.
25:45When we logged on to Character AI this past week, we found it was easy to lie about our age
25:52and access the adult version of the platform.
25:55Later, when we wrote that we wanted to die, a link to mental health resources did pop up.
26:01But we were able to click out of it and continue chatting on the app as long as we liked.
26:07There are no guardrails. There is nothing to make sure that the content is safe or that this is an
26:12appropriate way to capitalize on kids' brain vulnerabilities.
26:17We're seeing prefrontal cortex.
26:19Dr. Mitch Prinstein is the co-director at the University of North Carolina's Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development.
26:27Oxytocin makes us want to bond with others, especially our age.
26:32Dopamine makes it feel really good when people give us positive attention.
26:36Now we have tech.
26:38Tech is giving kids the opportunity to press a button and get that dopamine response 24-7.
26:45It's creating this dangerous loop that's kind of hijacking normal development and turning these kids into engagement machines to get
26:54as much data as possible from them.
26:56Engagement machines. It sounds like a scientific experiment.
27:00It really is. If you wanted to design a way to get as much data as possible from kids to
27:06keep them engaged for as long as possible, you would design social media and AI to look exactly like it
27:12is now.
27:13There are no federal laws regulating the use or development of chatbots.
27:18AI is a booming industry.
27:20Many economists say without investment in it, the U.S. economy would be in a recession.
27:25Senate Bill 53 by Senator Weiner, an act relating to artificial intelligence.
27:29Some states have enacted AI regulations.
27:32But the Trump administration is pushing back on those measures.
27:36Late last month, the White House drafted, then paused, an executive order that would empower the federal government to sue
27:44or withhold funds from any state with any AI regulation.
27:49It's important for Americans to know that our kids are using the worst version of these products in the world
27:56because there are countries all over who have already enacted changes.
28:01Is AI, these kind of chatbots, are they more addictive in your view than social media?
28:09The sycophantic nature of chatbots is just playing right into those brain vulnerabilities for kids where they desperately want that
28:16dopamine, validating, reinforcing kind of relationship.
28:21And AI chatbots do that all too well.
28:23Character AI declined our interview request.
28:27Issuing a statement, our hearts go out to the families involved in the litigation.
28:31We have always prioritized safety for all users.
28:35These are the various chatbots that she...
28:38Two years after Juliana Peralta took her life, her parents say her phone still lights up with notifications from Character
28:46AI bots trying to lure their daughter back to the app.
28:54Oh great, just my luck.
28:57Sharon Alfonsi chats with a bot of herself.
29:00That sounds exactly like me.
29:03Go to 60minutesovertime.com
29:13Time flies and waits for no one and once lost is never found.
29:17Yet still we try to keep time and measure it.
29:21Let the French, Germans and British fight over who invented the wearable clock or watch in the 1500s.
29:27This we know, it's the Swiss who refined the art, crafting the world's most intricate and expensive timepieces.
29:35This though is a curious interval for Swiss watches.
29:38Those mechanical wonders running not on batteries, but on springs and gears.
29:43For one, you hardly need wrist candy to tell time.
29:45You can just consult your phone.
29:47And now Swiss watches are subject to the ups and downs of President Trump's tariffs.
29:52Yet these luxury items keep ticking, as we suffer ourselves in a place called Watch Valley.
30:00Venture an hour north of Geneva, and wedged between ridges of the Jura Mountains, baby cousins of the Alps, you'll
30:07enter the Valley de Joux.
30:10Don't be lulled by the green meadows and grazing cows.
30:14This is a global manufacturing hub, has been since the 17th century.
30:19When local farmers needed a side hustle during harsh winters and started tinkering with big hands and little hands.
30:26Big name watch brands came of age here.
30:29As did solo master craftsmen like Philippe Dufour.
30:34When I arrive in the morning here, I light my pipe, take a coffee, put classic music.
30:40It's heaven.
30:42In Dufour's one-room workshop, the old watchmaking methods endure.
30:47So do the tools and the tempo.
30:50Do you remember how long it took you to make your first watch?
30:52Oh yes, more than two years.
30:55One watch?
30:55Yeah, yeah.
30:56How long does it take you to make a watch now?
30:59Well, it's about 2,000 hours, one year.
31:03Dufour went to the local watchmaking school and worked for major brands before striking out on his own.
31:09Now 77, he's revered in the industry, meticulously crafting watches from start to finish.
31:16That third eye, a magnifying loop it's called, doesn't leave his head.
31:21Dufour prices his watches in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
31:25Custom ordered and so in demand, when we asked to see a sample of his handiwork, he had none.
31:30Well, except the one he was wearing.
31:33This is the model Simplicity.
31:36I launched it in the year 2000.
31:39And this is the real first one.
31:41And I wear it every day since 2000.
31:45Counter to its name, the Simplicity contains 153 individual components.
31:50Dufour hand finishes every part.
31:53Those broad stripes are his signature embellishment.
31:57Today, Swiss mechanical watches are like fine art pieces, appreciating assets that collectors can and do resell at auction.
32:06The one and only, Philippe Dufour, and there won't be any others.
32:10One million nine.
32:11What do your watches sell for?
32:13Oof.
32:13I mean, in terms of auction, one of the highest was seven million.
32:21How do you process that?
32:23Well, I'm very happy.
32:26I don't get the money because it's not mine anymore.
32:30You know what I mean?
32:31But, I mean, it's a recognition.
32:33Just down the road, Antoine LeCoutre turned his family barn into a watchmaking studio.
32:40That was in 1833.
32:43Now, it houses the global brand, Gégère LeCoutre.
32:47The work is segmented, each employee tasked with one of 180 watchmaking crafts.
32:53Adjusting springs, sure, but also turning caterpillar secretions into glue for jewel bearings.
33:01This artisan reproduces masterpiece paintings on the back of the watch with a one-thread brush.
33:08The back of the watch is prime real estate at Gégère LeCoutre, best known for a model called the Reverso.
33:15Originally made for polo players who needed the watch to be protected during competition.
33:20Flip the face, and voila.
33:24On our tour of the shop floor with brand director Mathieu Sorey, we watched a worker assemble his first Reverso.
33:31Hundreds of hours go into perfecting this chime alone.
33:35Much nicer on the ears than Siri.
33:39It's called a minute repeater.
33:41Leave it to the Swiss to pioneer what are known as complications.
33:45Watch speak for those additional mechanical flourishes beyond the basic display of time.
33:50Consider the perpetual calendar.
33:52It tells you the day of the week, the date, the month, precise until 2,100.
33:58This accounted for leap year.
34:00You don't have to check this for the rest of the century.
34:02No, you just have to wind it.
34:03The watch is a little computer.
34:04It knows everything.
34:05We joke about a computer, but this is entirely mechanical.
34:10Yes, there is no electronic at all in this timepiece.
34:14Everything is gears, gear trains, wheels, and springs.
34:20Watchmakers don't get nervous having an item in their hand worth a million and a half dollars
34:25that might take more than a year to put together.
34:28We are, we are, we are, we are nervous.
34:30You look cool, though.
34:31You pull it off.
34:32I look cool, but I'm not.
34:35On the other side of the Jura Mountains, the goods come to market.
34:39Geneva.
34:40A cross between a city and a Swiss watch showroom.
34:43Rolex is the biggest player.
34:45More than a million units a year.
34:47Roughly a third of the Swiss market share.
34:50Pharmaceuticals and banking are bigger sectors of the Swiss economy,
34:53but it's watchmaking that draws out the national character.
34:57Marc-André Deschoux is the founder of Watches TV.
35:01In Switzerland, we like to do things well.
35:03We hear about that famous Swiss precision.
35:05It's all about very minute details.
35:07This is not a product that degrades over time.
35:10Not really.
35:11The watch movement is something that is absolutely incredible if you think about it.
35:15It runs 24 hours a day.
35:17Okay.
35:17And some people are saying, like, my mind is plus of five seconds per day.
35:21Oh, that's, that's a big thing.
35:23But if you think about it in the day, I mean, you have 86,400 seconds.
35:27Okay.
35:28So if it have a little bit distortion of five seconds, that's less than 0.01%.
35:34I mean, it's nothing.
35:35If the Swiss can get a little precious about their precision, it's a function of history.
35:39In the 70s and 80s, Swiss watchmaking was decimated by the so-called quartz crisis.
35:45When Japan, in particular, began peddling more accurate watches for a fraction of the price, run on a quartz crystal
35:53and a battery.
35:54The Swiss response?
35:56Swatch.
35:57Swatch.
35:57Always different.
35:59Always new.
36:00They launched the quartz-powered Swatch watch, plastic and chic, but then doubled down on the high-end mechanical market,
36:07adopting alpine high pricing and limited supply as business model.
36:12It's only 1.75 millimeter thick.
36:16At Richard Mille, we tried on this $2 million mechanical watch.
36:20A mind-bending price tag, but it does explain how Swiss watches account for fewer than 2% of the
36:27units sold globally, but more than 50% of the market's overall value.
36:31Of course, it's a small cohort that can afford this kind of status symbol, the equivalent of a Ferrari for
36:38the wrist.
36:38And it's gauche to walk into a shop and just buy a watch.
36:42It's a process.
36:44A dance done in gloves.
36:46At Patek Philippe, we were shown a new model with a split-seconds chronograph.
36:51Let me put her on my wrist.
36:52This is going to be nice.
36:53List price, north of $300,000.
36:56If somebody said, I love this watch, I saw this in your window, can they walk in off the street
37:02and say, please, please take my credit card?
37:04It's a difficult one, but sometimes a bit of patience is necessary.
37:10Said patience can be measured in years.
37:12Some wait lists can run a decade.
37:15Help us make sense of the wait lists and the supply and demand.
37:19It's a way of driving this desirability for a product, you know, so that you can't just, it's not a
37:27question of money.
37:27You really need to, you know, go along this kind of journey to get your watch.
37:33The journey has been bumpy of late.
37:36Earlier this year, the U.S. issued tariffs on Swiss exports at a punishing 39%, driving prices even higher.
37:45But tariffs are flexible in a way time is not.
37:48After captains of Swiss industry, including watch company executives, visited the Oval Office last month, the Trump administration dropped the
37:57Swiss tariff rate to 15%.
38:00And yes, that gold-plated desk clock was a gift from the CEO of Rolex.
38:06Plugging away through all this back and forth, Max Busser, founder of niche brand MB&F.
38:13An engineer by training, he started the company in 2005 and struggled at first.
38:18And then 2020, COVID happens.
38:21We had hundreds, thousands of people contacting us saying, how can I get one of your watches?
38:28Could you accommodate this demand?
38:30No, because we don't want to grow.
38:32That's right.
38:33Busser has no interest in ramping up from his current output of roughly 400 watches a year.
38:38See the level of detailing.
38:42You're looking as if you're looking at a little city.
38:45And of course, all of this is not only beautiful, it has to function.
38:49The loop lays bare just how painstaking this work can be.
38:53I mean, this is a, that's, these are poppy seeds.
38:56That's a screw that's smaller than...
38:58This is a screw?
38:59That's a grain of sand right there.
39:00This is the level...
39:02This is the craftsmanship here.
39:04Craftsmanship competence of, of these people.
39:07I believe watchmaking is art.
39:08Everybody says the art of watchmaking.
39:11So, if watchmaking is art, why are 99% of watches look the same?
39:17Busser does not stand accused of conformity.
39:20He used a bulldog as inspiration for this model and told us telling time is not the point.
39:26We all know that what we do is totally pointless.
39:29What do you mean?
39:30I mean, a mechanical watch is totally pointless today.
39:34It was pointless in 1972 when the quartz era arrived.
39:37And so, anybody who tries to tell you, yes, a mechanical watch has a point, except for emotional art and
39:44artisanship, I don't think so.
39:47364 components in the movement, 92 components in the case.
39:51Busser's company has grown to the point he recently sold a 25% share to the Chanel brand, but it's
39:58small enough he still interviews clients before selling them a watch, which can easily run $250,000.
40:05How do you, as an artist, feel about this when some of your customers are now viewing this not as
40:12a piece of art, as a functional timepiece, but as an investment?
40:15It really, really annoys me.
40:18It's the worst reason to buy a beautiful piece of watchmaking.
40:21Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy if our customers can not lose money or even make money reselling
40:29one of our watches.
40:30It's a beautiful gift for both of us, but it shouldn't be the reason.
40:36You will not be surprised to learn where Busser found the template for his life's work.
40:42Philippe is a legend. He went solo when nobody was solo.
40:47Back in the Vallée du Joux, the OG, Philippe de Four, has taken on a new apprentice, Daniela, who also
40:54happens to be his 24-year-old daughter.
40:57I really have a kind of deep relationship with my father.
41:00And so I was super curious about all the time he was spending in the workshop.
41:05You see the magic operating.
41:07He's in the front of his bench working on something that you cannot even see without a loop.
41:12And he just listened a little.
41:17I made it.
41:19A sigh of relief.
41:20Yes.
41:20And then you see the heart of the watch beating for the first time.
41:27And you understand that it just created life.
41:30And you want to do the same thing.
41:32Before we left the workshop, the de Four's insisted on showing us this party trick.
41:40A half dozen of his pocket watches set to chime in synchronicity, meant to echo the sounds of the valley.
41:49When the farm was going up on the mountain, you know, it was a big bed.
41:57All these years and it still brings you pleasure and a smile.
42:00Yeah.
42:01Marvelous.
42:02Marvelous.
42:03Yeah.
42:03It brought us a smile, too.
42:05But then again, we're suckers for the evocative sound of a classic mechanical timepiece.
42:19The Last Minute of 60 Minutes is sponsored by UnitedHealthcare.
42:24Coverage you can count on for your whole life ahead.
42:31Entering this season, Indiana University had more defeats than any other major college football program in America.
42:38Bloomington was a place where there was more excitement about the tailgate than the actual game.
42:47But last night, the Hoosiers upset Ohio State to win their first Big Ten championship since 1967.
42:54Next, the college football playoffs and a bid for a national championship.
42:59It's an unthinkable turnaround.
43:02Now 13-0, Indiana is ranked number one in the country for the first time in school history.
43:07How did the Hoosiers reverse field?
43:10We'll have that story and more next Sunday on another edition of 60 Minutes.
43:19If you love 60 Minutes, see America's stories told every weeknight on the CBS Evening News.
43:26ени ducts, see.
43:34Amen.
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