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Tucker Carlson August 31, 2026 57m

Trump Ushers in 300,000 Tons of Foreign Mystery Meat and Sends American Farmers Into Bankruptcy

Read full transcript 53 segments
  1. Joe Maxwell, thank you so much for doing this. The president has announced that we're gonna be importing a lot of beef from Argentina, a huge amount of beef, from Argentina. And in his justification for this, he did not mention beef prices in the United States. He said, we're doing this because Argentina's in trouble and we're trying to help Argentina. So I think this was very confusing for a lot people watching. What do you think is going on here? Well, you're absolutely right. The president's actually made two announcements about importing beef from Argentina. Uh, the first time, which was, uh, quite a shock to all of us out here in rural America was, um, that he was going to quadruple the amount of beef coming in the United States. And his basis was, Uh, that, uh, the people of Argentina was struggling to survive and he liked the president most recently, uh he, uh has the NAS 330. Thousand metric tons of which he's purchased 80,000 metric tons from Argentina again.

  2. And so we're beginning to really dig into that and take a look at what is the real motivation. It clearly isn't in our, we know for a fact it's not America's farmers and ranchers, we're seeing the cattle market go down right after we just started making a profit. And we don't see the results in the grocery store, consumers still can't afford their food. So I think, I mean, there are a lot of potential motives here. One is geopolitical. The president of Argentina is a close ally of the prime minister of Israel, unlike President Maduro, who is an opponent of, right? So that's certainly a factor in this. There may be others. What would the others be? Yeah, well first let's, you know, I respect the geopolitical landscape, but we have to put America first. Farmers and ranchers, 63 farmers a day are going out of business while people can't afford their groceries. There is a serious problem in rural America.

  3. Farmers in ranchers are in crisis, not unlike what the president described of those in Argentina. So I respect that those folks may be struggling to survive, but so are America's farmers and ranchers. So I just wanna make that point, Tucker, that you gotta balance that and we don't see that happening in the White House. What are some of the answers? Ask you to pause the why, for those of us not in the business, why is there a crisis in ranching? If meat prices are at an all-time high, when oil prices go up, the oil companies thrive. But meat prices have gone up and ranchers are going out of business. What is the problem, do you think? Well You mentioned oil companies. Our gas prices in my little town just went up again, crude oils down, gasses up, makes no sense. But the reason is, is those companies, a handful of companies control the oil from the wellhead, well actually from under the ground, all the way to the gas pump. With cattle and much of what farmers and ranchers raise, we're price takers.

  4. We don't set the price. We have to pay our inputs whatever we're told by a handful of companies the price is. Then we hold up what we raise and say, how much will another handful of companies give us for it? There are four companies that control 85% of all the cattle in the United States. Two of them are Brazilian. And we have asked them, how will you give me for that? So, when we see prices in the grocery store go up... There's not a correlation that America's farmers and ranchers are gonna receive a greater benefit from that price because in the middle, it's so heavily concentrated between the meat packers and the retail grocers for grocery big box stores control 69% of all the groceries in the United States. So that concentration between the farmer and the consumer.

  5. Can cause the consumer to be price gouged on price and the farmer to be short paid for what the real value of their goods are, in this case beef. It doesn't sound like an efficient market, that's not the capitalism I was promised. Well, Tucker, I have an ag economics degree. I don't hold myself up as an economist, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a professor in my old econ class to understand that capitalism doesn't work if it doesn t have the restraint of competition. Right. Right. That's one of the base fundamentals. Now, a lot of us have been trying to get both Democrats and Republicans have brought to this horrible state. Where handful of companies can have so much influence over Congress and the Oval Office. And the fact is that when we try to do something to force antitrust enforcement or try to put new laws in place to modernize those, many of those were passed in the early 1900s or late 1800s, people scream, you know, the free market, folks who want to wrap themselves of the free market, which I pull myself out for the free market.

  6. They want to call me a socialist because I want to implement the fundamentals and make sure they're in place, like the restraint of competition, in our capitalist system. Otherwise, a handful of people get all the wealth. We launched the Rural Independence Initiative to try to have these kind of conversations. It's been both major parties have gotten us in this position. Started with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton put it on steroids. And what we now see is this restraint in the market where new companies can't even enter the market. We can't get new competition. Entrepreneurship is almost dead in most sectors in America. And so we say free market, and you said capitalist. I'm a capitalist. I've owned companies, businesses, I've own a farm. But capitalism doesn't work unless we allow competition.

  7. And both parties have eroded competition to where there isn't any. For companies, control will give you an idea on egg prices when avian flu came out. Eggs are staples, so I hope most of the viewers get this. So your eggs went up 300% in the grocery store. The largest egg producer in the United States, Cal Maynes, profits went up tenfold. The avian flu was serious, animals died. But the fact is, they only lost about 6% to 7% of the flock. So they screamed avian-flu, which gave them an excuse to hike up prices, gouge the consumer, rake in billions of dollars. One company made... More money in a quarter than it made in the whole year before, and why? Because USDA, this is kind of telling Tucker, USDA economists came out and said, well, we see prices are way far above what they ought to be based upon the facts.

  8. We expect other people to come in in the emerging market or in this market and lower the price of eggs. And four months later, the report came and said we're not sure why nobody came in. But no one did because the concentration is so heavy you can't get into the market. With four companies controlling retail groceries, with their sweetheart deals with the big four producers of any food item, you can get in. And it allows those companies to gouge the consumer and short pay the farmer, and they reap all the money. They've extracted the wealth out of rural America. We've launched the Rural Independence Initiative to put aside party politics. Strip yourself of party identity, let's roll up our sleeves and let's work together and let us understand that capitalism does not work without the constraint, the restraint of competition. I would think you'd have the overwhelming majority of the public on your side with that initiative. We sure hope so.

  9. We just launched, we are cross-party effort. When we make an endorsement of a candidate, we don't tell the public if it's a D or an R or an I. It should be the person, right? It ought to be that they stand up against this power, this influence in Washington DC. They're willing to go toe to toe. We endorsed Congressman Massey. Now, we didn't win that. We worked hard. Others did too, so did the congressmen, but we're endorsing candidates that will go toe to toe with this power and not bend to the influence in Washington, D.C. This beef deal is really about the White House and, to some degree, members of Congress bending to the influences of this monopolistic oligarchy power and the influence that they tab. When they get market share, market power, they therefore get economic power.

  10. I talked about eggs gouging the consumers. They make billions of dollars. Then they invest that in lobbyists and campaign contributions in order to stay in that power. And so what happens is, is that that influence then, the Batista family can just walk into the Oval Office. That's the owners of the world's largest meat packer. Is JBS, owned by one family from Brazil. And they can walk into the Oval Office and have a sit down. They can negotiate between the President of Brazil and the President United States so that those two can get together. That's the power of these companies and corporations and folks now have and the influence they have not only over our government, but other governments. And we have to come together as a people. And push back against that power. Just because the battles stop doesn't mean war stops hurting the people who fight them.

  11. No, for many veterans, the effects of what they've been asked to do continue long after they return home. They're injured, physically and psychologically, and those injuries can last a lifetime. Groups like the Hunter 7 Foundation are here to help them. Hunter 7 foundation works to identify, to study, and to address the long-term health effects of toxic exposure during military service. To help veterans get care, get answers, and advocate for their health and their future. It's a non-profit. Hunter 7 relies on the support from other proud American companies, and Black Rifle is one of those. Black Rifles Coffee proudly supports organizations that stand up for soldiers who risk their lives because no veteran should have to fight for their help by themselves. They should have the entire country's support. To learn more about this good cause, find resources for yourself or a loved one or help support the mission. Visit hunter7.org today. That's hunter7 dot org. So how do you think this specific deal came to pass?

  12. I think we mentioned the geopolitical climate. There's no doubt with the first deal last October, November, the quadrupling, the importation of beef from Argentina was because of an election in Argentina. And it wasn't looking good for an ally of the president, someone he considers a friend. I'm not an expert on geopolitics, so I won't say it was good to have him re-elected or not. I just don't know. But I do know that that's a fact and therefore we quadrupled the importation to raise and secure the economic future. Also we gave 20 billion taxpayer money to Argentina and we put together a banking deal. Uh, with other financiers of about 20 billion and plus this beef deal. Um, and, and but the other thing is just the influence of JBS.

  13. JBS has plants, uh, in Argentina. It's the influence, um, of, of these large corporations. I'll give you, um. How does it work? JBS is one of the most corrupt organizations in the world, and they have confessed to bribing up to 1,800 politicians in Brazil in order to get an increase in value of their shares to borrow billions to invest in the United States in the meat market. And they bought beef, pork. And chicken. So they are a protein company. So the president is looking for money for his inaugural committee, Pilgrim's Pride, which is JBS's poultry division, gave $5 million to the Trump inaugural committee. And For years, JBS had been trying to get on the stock exchange to get publicly listed in the United States.

  14. And shortly thereafter, they got that. Shortly thereafter, Josly Batista, one of the, there's two of them, Wesley and his brother, met with the president. And it's reported that they talked about beef prices and Brazilian tariffs. They have had strong relationships with the president in his prior first term. We had to bail out money to try to help America's farmers and ranchers that I helped work on. The Trump-wanted administration moved over $60 million of that bailout for America's farmers to JBS to help bail them out. There was a guy the name of Al Ammanza in 2017 under the first term. You can look this up. This is fact as it's been reported and as the investigations, police investigations have indicated. Um, the Brazilian police.

  15. Started an investigation called Weak Meat, and they believed that inspectors were being bribed to let tainted, rotted meat, abscessed meat, out of Brazil, millions of pounds. And they discovered it was so. And they notified the world that there's a bunch of bad meat on the market, beef market. China, Chile, other countries within three days closed their ports to Brazilian beef. Again, JBS is a major beef producer and we're tied into this investigation along with a couple of other meat companies. And it took the U.S. 97 days. To close its border to Brazilian beef. 97 days. I always suspected, never did the research, it took about 97 days to bring in millions of pounds of rotten meat and we were the only country that didn't close our border.

  16. So there has been favored status. Oh, the kicker here, Tucker, do you know where Al Almanza now works? No. He, I laugh, it's this bad. This is the kind of influence these big multinational companies have over our government. He got a job, JBSSA, that's their South American main company, their main company. He got job, they created it as the head of global food safety. It's undisclosed how much they pay him, but he left USDA where he was the interim FSIS, and that's the Food Safety Inspection Services for the United States of America, that runs the inspections to let meat in or not in to this country. And he turned around and went to work for the very people that had been caught, along with others in Brazil, other companies in Brazil trying to move millions of pounds.

  17. And he left our borders open for 97 days in 2017. Cost of living is already making it hard to live here and it's not getting any better. Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse and a lot of Americans fill the gap with credit cards, not just for fancy dinners, but to cover things like groceries and bills. That is a disaster. It's understandable, but don't go down that road because there is a tax in effect, a survival tax of 20% interest or more. Why would you do that? Why would hand money to the big banks when you can keep it for your family? Our friends at American Financing have a better way. If you're looking to buy your first home or refinance your current one, they're helping Americans achieve the dream of home ownership with monthly mortgage rates currently in the fives. American financing saves its customers an average of 800 bucks per month. That's nearly 10 grand every year back to you. This isn't just a loan, it's a total financial reset. So debt is tough, but there's a smart way to do it and a reckless, self-destructive way to it, credit cards.

  18. And so we recommend American financing. They're salary-based, not commission-based which means they actually work for you, not the banks. They're called America's home for home loans for a reason. Call 800-685-5696. 800- 685- 5696 or visit americanfinancing.net slash Tucker. How was that legal? How can a US government regulator leave his job and then work for the industry that he regulated. Why do we allow that? I don't know why we allow that, Tucker. Maybe you and I need to get together, a few other folks that have similar views of, and go after both parties until they stop doing that. We call it the revolving door. It's very serious. It is the real, it's just one component of the influence that these big companies have.

  19. They can walk into the Oval Office, they can walk in to any U.S. Senator, member of Congress office. Unfortunately, in our opinion, based upon farm policy, the majority of these and ours support what they want, not what America's farmers want. And the other influence they have is come time for appointments. They line up their people from the industry to get jobs within the administration and are deep-seated then into the regulatory agencies. So they're, in the beginning, they're appointed and they're regulating themselves, because they've got one of their folks inside. And then, After that administration leaves, the door goes the other way, they go back home. They're kind of like guaranteed a job. They usually get, I think, I'm not sure, but I'm sure they get a star or two to put on the refrigerator like we do at home when the kids do well.

  20. And pat it on the back, you know? And that is the amount of influence. That's what happens when we fight for a free market and we fail to put the safeguards in place. It's what we get when we're distracted by so many issues that they throw at us that we, all of us, lose sight of what the real issues and that is protecting our economy, protecting our rural communities, protecting the people. And instead we start thinking it's more serious if we aren't protecting JBS's future or something like that. And you know, I often joke, uh, that, you know, didn't matter which presidential candidate won D or R, uh, because, uh you know it was just a matter of which Goldman Sachs executive was going to be the head of treasury back in the day. That's what I would say. And if you look, that's kind of how it worked. Uh, there really wasn't a distinction between the parties for about 40 years as it relates to the, but they fight over things and then they let their billionaires and their monopolistic corporations.

  21. Uh. You know, rob all of us. Rob the consumer at the grocery store. They short pay the farmer. These big meat companies have been accused and have settled. They didn't admit they did it, but had been accused of price fixing wages. There was something called the Agrostat system. And they shared data so they could depress wages. So it's not just farmers and ranchers. It's also the workers that get short paid. So that's the unfortunate state that we're in. And people are angry. Out here in rural America, we're angry. We're angry over this beef deal. We're that many thought. Things were getting better. We were starting to make a profit. And then the president takes this course of action and plummets our market.

  22. And we know that our neighbors at the grocery store going in the grocery story. Well, we oftentimes go into grocery store, right? So even ourselves, we're not gonna see that benefit. And based upon the record that I've described, Tucker, of tainted meats and inspections, and, you know, you got to wonder. Know that the global beef supply is short this year compared to last year. Why? Globally, there's less beef. I don't know all the reasons, some of which are. Most are weather related. It's also been price related. Farmers around the world have been underpaid for, and so if you're gonna get underpaid, you're not gonna do much of it anymore. So you start selling off your herd. So weather, short paid to farmers. And so the global supply today is less than last year.

  23. Okay, so. In 90 days, the president of the United States is saying, we're going to bring in to this country over 750 million pounds of beef. Now this order for beef wasn't anticipated. It wasn't laying out there in the world's global beef supply. It's a seller's market today, right? I mean, if you have goods and it's in short supply, Then why are you going to discount it 25%? The president claims well, I bought it for 25% below the market Well who in the world is going to sell Something that's in shorter supply this year than last year at a discount Unless it's something they can't sell to anybody else It has to make us ask where you're buying this and what the world isn't Somebody is getting a benefit.

  24. I don't have who, but based on past track records, I'd say follow the money is what I try to say. We as people need to ask who gets the benefit from this? It's not the farmer or rancher, cattle producer. It doesn't appear it's going to be the consumer. So who? It's somebody we're buying it from and that's going to sell something they can't sell anywhere else and they're going to sale it in this country. It's not just a stockpile of beef nobody wanted, because we're in a decline on supply of beef in this world, and demand is up. It's a seller's market right now. So, so many questions. I mean, you're aware that global central planners have for some time said out loud, people eat too much beef, we need to reduce consumption of beef.

  25. They're not hiding it. You know, famously, the World Economic Forum has had a bunch of different panels on this exact topic. Do you see a connection between that ideology, whatever it is, and the decline in global beef supply? Yeah, I don't think that they had to leverage their plans. I think Mother Nature has leveraged a lot of the plans and this concentration in the meat market. I do believe that it's evidence that those plans or those meetings occurred and those conversations occurred. But what... I mean, the Western United States, as well as other areas in the world, have faced droughts. We're facing extreme weather patterns that we've not faced before that caused costs to go up. And prices didn't go up because of the concentration. Four companies control the meat market.

  26. Four companies, 85%. Two of them are Brazilian. This is in beef. Pork, four companies control 68 to 70%, chicken about 68%, so it's everywhere. And a lot of the same companies control all three proteins. I think it's a product more of the concept, and these companies are global, you know, U.S. Tyson, Cargill, it's not just Brazilian, JBS Brazilian is the largest meat protein company in the world, but, and they just have been short paying farmers all over the world. There's riots, the protests going on everywhere from India to Europe by farmers. And so, that's what I think really has put most of the strain on the market.

  27. There's no doubt certain regulations and other things have impacted the profitability, so I don't want to take away from that, but the bigger fact has just been the constraints put on by Mother Nature and a market that's relentlessly controlled. So you described shrinking supply, rising demand, and then a president who says, somehow I found this huge cache of beef at below market prices, and I'm gonna send it to the United States. And you made the point, I don't know where this is coming from, but logic suggests it's unsellable meat, and we're getting stuck with it. So that raises the question. I think I'm fairly characterizing what you said. Like how are we sure that this is fit for human consumption? Like what's the track record of here? Yeah, well, track record's not good. I gave you the 2017 97 days to close the border, detain and abscess meat when China, for God sakes, three days shut down their border to it. I mean, we're always comparing ourselves to China and somehow they got it, the message and the memo a lot quicker than Al did.

  28. But... I think that one of the most tragic issues, this goes to a part of your question, but I think what's so important is to recognize that the United States does not have mandatory country of origin labeling on beef and pork. This case is beef. I can tell you where this shirt I have on, the one you have on comes from and May. I can buy a dog treat, you know, tell me what country it was made in. When you go to the grocery store, it doesn't tell you where it comes from. So this meat is because we don't have mandatory country of origin labeling. Now Senator Thune, Republican leader of the US Senate, has a bill, the American Beef Labeling Act, and in a bipartisan vote that they voted into the farm bill a few Thursdays ago before they broke. The Farm Bill didn't get through, but It was a bipartisan effort, which was very encouraging, but it's very, this story is very tragic.

  29. I absolutely believe that this has got to be me, somebody could, they're not going to discount in a seller's market, I'm a business person, shoot, you know. If something's in short supply, I'm not gonna say, oh, I'll give you 25% off because I don't have enough of it. Right. So that's just not logical. So it has to be something they couldn't move somewhere else. And the track record is, is that, and the president's not saying where he's getting it, that lack of transparency is one concern. And America's people won't know if it showed up in their grocery store or not. It's a lot of beef. We throw these numbers around, I'll try to put it into kind of perspective, on the average last year, I will get this right, the average pounds of beef imported into the United States per month last year was 447 million pounds.

  30. That's average all year. The president is going to bring this meat in in 90 days. It is over 750 million pounds of meat. In 90 days, that would be 250 million pounds a month more. That's over 50% increase per month. Of what the average was last year of being imported. It's a lot of beef. So when we're saying, you know, it's not, so all the viewers need to understand, there's not it's that much meat. It's not just laying around, as you said, Tucker. I mean, it just not laying around. It's too big of a pile of beef and it's a new order. It's that like it was in the pipeline. So. American consumers aren't gonna know where their beef comes from because we don't have mandatory country of origin labeling and everyone viewing this ought to call their US Senator and their member of Congress and the White House because the president does not support mandatory country of origin labeling and demand that that be passed immediately when they return so that we can gosh darn at least know if we're eating some of this junk.

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  32. Visit Dutch.com slash Tucker, use the code Tucker for $50 off. Truly, Dutch is real, it works. We did a lot of research into this, used it before recommending it. Dutch. Com slash Tucker. Well, what's the- potential or even theoretical justification for opposing labeling country of origin. Like, I don't understand that. Yeah. Well, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, one of the largest trade and lobbying organizations, also is both, it represents, its members are 5% or so of US cattle producers, but it also has members that are the big packers. NCBA represents itself as the voice of America's cattle produce. The Packers and the NCBA. Push hard to not have country of origin labeling, we had it up until 2015.

  33. And then it got tied up into a dispute with the WTO after Mexico and Canada sued the United States in the tribunal. And there was going to be a penalty placed on the U.S. For a restraint in trade. And the Congress got nervous and repealed it, 2015, under the Obama administration. So, these groups say it's going to cost too much money. It's going raise prices. That's the fear tactic that they use to try to get to Congress. Everybody's worried about affordability right now. We were talking about that on beef prices, fuel prices, like I mentioned fertilizer a minute, but. But the reality is the truth, the politics behind it, is that, we just talked about it, these four companies that control 85% of the beef in the United States are international. They're importing and exporting beef all over the world.

  34. They export U.S. Beef and import Brazilian beef. I mean, the same company, moving it all around the world They know that the American people and surveys, public surveys have proven this, will pay the American farmer more money. They feel and understand it's a safer product because there's been so many problems in the important world and they'll pay more. And these companies don't want to lose their ability to commingle, to mix. This extra, we're not talking about a chunk of steak or a roast, right? We're talking about some grind or emulsified product. And they bring that into the United States and they throw it in a vat, uh, you know, million pounds of hamburger and they stir it all up and they don't want to list and track all the countries that that stuff came from, that they threw in that vat.

  35. Oh, come on. No, it's so repulsive. Well, I'm just telling you trouble hearing this. That's disgusting. I have trouble as an American farmer, believe in we've allowed the food system. To get to such a state that that's what we're feeding the people, right? It's a dang disgrace, but that's the reality of where we are. They have so much influence that they are able to keep mandatory country of origin labeling off. Now, I commend Senator Thune. He's the leader of the U.S. Senate. He is from a great state that raises cattle. It didn't go to his head when he became a national leader. He stayed focused on a priority back home and he delivered a great vote, uh, along with the Democrats, uh hats off to them too, uh for voting for a Republican amendment and, uh they're fighting hard, but they're up against the wall and every viewer should call their member of the Senate and a member of the house and the white house and demand.

  36. With the president bringing in 330,000 metric tons, which equals over 750 million pounds of beef, which is over 50% increase per month. That's the amount that's gonna be in the grocery store. We deserve to know where it came from. Tell us on the label before we buy. Yes. So I have read, I have no idea if it's what's true, which is why I'm glad you're here, but that China had had banned beef imports from Argentina on the basis of hormones or chemicals in the meat that they believed were dangerous. Is that true? Yes, and I you hear the way I talk now And I can't pronounce the word, it's an antibiotic. So I apologize to the listeners and viewers. But anyway, it is an antibiotic and if I would attempt to pronounce that, I would only further embarrass myself.

  37. So, but anyway, there is, okay, so there's a very potent antibiotic that is used for humans when we're extremely serious and other antibiotics have failed. The reason it's rarely used is because it stays, its residue, the antibiotic stays in the muscle tissue for very long extended periods of time. It has been banned, its use in livestock has been banned in Argentina, the US, China, Canada, many countries, to be used in livestock because we all worry what we eat, and if it's got just a little bit of antibiotics in it, right, maybe the listeners don't know. So one of the reasons overuse of antibiotics and production of livestock. Is a real problem is because this residue stays, which is really just the antibiotic stays, you eat it, and so you have a little bit of antibiotics in you.

  38. Well, the bug or germ that you might have that your body's fighting gets a little sick, but it's not enough antibiotics to kill it. That little germ or virus, it mutates and becomes resistant to the antibiotic, creating... Antibiotic-resistant disease in illnesses. So that's why this one stays in the muscle tissue for a very long extended time. I don't want to use the word toxic. If you're sick and you need this antibiotic, it's not toxic to your body, right? It's a good thing. You know, you've got malaria, I think it's used in malaria and some other things. So... But not in livestock, because they don't want, the folks that are banned at the country don't want us to have just a little bit of it, because one day we may need it, and if our body, that virus or whatever has become resistant to it, then it no longer works. And we lose that great tool, that great antibiotic that's kind of a last resort antibiotic.

  39. So... However, Argentina, and we've already talked about South American countries and tainted beef earlier. Argentina, somebody over there is using it in the production of their cattle. Note that we just brought in 80,000 metric tons, which is about a little over 17 million pounds. And China caught it. And they said, we're not taking this. This antibiotic that we detected in this meat. Is banned from the use of livestock here, we're not going to take meat from another country that allows that to be used. And they rejected it. So I cannot remember, I apologize, Tucker, it was a small poundage, but they didn't test everything. They just rejected the whole thing. So... A few days later, this week, the president has announced one of the first places he's going for his 330,000 metric tons of beef is Argentina.

  40. The first deal he struck was for 80,000. Metric tons of the 330,00 will come from Argentina. I have no evidence, nor am I... We try to make over accusations, but it does scare the heck out of me that if we're talking about 750 million pounds of beef and it's not just laying around somewhere, somebody's trying to peddle something they can't sell elsewhere. We know Argentina has some beef they need to sell, and it is a 25% discount. So, we should be asking to make sure this administration beasts back up. The people that they let go, get them back in FSIS, and get them on the front line, and we need to be testing to make sure that Argentina beef doesn't have that residue in it that China found. Storm season is on the way and that means your wifi could go down and if it does, your security cameras go dark too. So at the exact moment you wanna survey your property during the blackout, you can't.

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  42. Introducing the Alp Frontier Collection. They are Campfire Cinnamon, Sunset Mango, and Cowboy Coffee, available in four milligram and eight milligram. Because if you're gonna use nicotine, You'll have some options Get the new Frontier Collection now at AlpPouch.com Is it, is it possible to buy an all American hamburger in the United States? It is. How? Oh, I think you all from Maine, is that right? Yeah. I'll get you in touch with some good farmers there. No, I mean to go for sure and you know, obviously I'm not worried about meat prices, I'm blessed in that way. So, yeah, we eat American beef in my house, period. Yeah. Okay. Well, the regular consumer that perhaps is too far removed from the farm to be able to do that.

  43. There are a few companies, one I filed so many years ago, I filed the first complaint with USDA. Okay, I don't want people to get confused. Right now, the country does not have mandatory country of origin labeling. That's where the government says you gotta put the label in your shirt, dog treats, and also on that beef. The problem is they don't do it on the beef now. And it should be mandatory. But what was even more egregious, or as egregous, was that companies were able to put on the label A processed meat? As well as meat products in the meat case, product of the USA, that term. This was allowed beginning in George W. Bush's administration, and it was done by the administration. Every president since then had let it go along.

  44. I filed a complaint with USDA against that. And towards the end of the Biden administration, they ruled in our favor. And it was like a decade fight. American Grass Fed Association, there was a lot of us. I happened to be the guy that wrote the complaint, but Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action was a big part of it. I don't wanna leave anybody out. It wasn't just me, I don't wanna overstate it. Biden agreed, and now that means if a company is going to voluntarily use, not mandate, but if they're going to choose, by the goodness of their little hearts, to put product of the USA on meat product, it has to be born, raised, slaughtered, and processed in the United States of America. That is now the standard for that label.

  45. It's voluntary. The Trump administration, while it threw out a lot of things that the Biden administration did over at USDA that we opposed. Um, on Packers and Stockyards Act rules, one thing they did keep was that rule and have really marketed it and worked to get it out into the world, out into marketplace. So if you go to your grocery store, not saying you can find it, but companies can now, if they are just buying beef. Cattle, slaughtering them, cattle that was born in the U.S., not those that come over from the borders, cattle born in U. S., raised in the US, slaughtered in the United States and processed in the USA, they can now, that label now has meaning, and you should look for that label.

  46. And you should encourage your grocery. To get that meat and use that label. FSIS is the one that does the labeling and that is their rule now. And it was put in by a Democrat administration and maintained by a Republican administration, which is always good in our view, because that usually says, okay, we won that one. You can make a ground with one party and then the other party comes in and just because. The politics, Tucker, and I know you know this, you live it and have for years, but it's just crazy. We identify more as a party in America than we do as the people of America. And just because the other party wanted to do something, we naturally think it's bad. This maha movement, which I work with, and we work with many of the maha leaders is an example, but. But that's what they should look for. It is available now.

  47. Not many companies are using it, but you can encourage your grocer, your restaurant to get that label, get the companies that are doing that. They're usually your regional, local meat packers that are seeking that label to differentiate themselves against the JBSs and the meat caser, the Tysons and the others. And it's good for that local processor, that regional processor. It helps the farmer and the rancher and you're guaranteed now in America that you're eating something from America and you are actually benefiting the American farmer. The beef that the president's gonna import from Argentina and maybe other places, what will that be used for? What percentage will go into ground beef and processed meat products, as opposed to intact meat products like steak? It's my understanding that the president has announced that within two weeks of his announcement that he is going to have an executive order to further define what this is.

  48. From the original reporting, his statements, some of it on social media, it will be ground burger. It will be grounded. Now, So it will not be whole muscles, as I indicated, like a roast or the steak, KC or T-bone or any of those. It will be the grind, for what we would call out in farm country, the grind off the cattle. What I will tell you in these plants, well, what is going on today, is that the the United States raises prime good stock cattle, but sometimes it's too too lean. They want to sell 80% hamburger, 80-20, or 73% lean, 27% fat.

  49. Of course. So they'll bring in emulsified fat from foreign countries. I'm sorry, emulsify lean from foreign countries to add to our fat coming off our prime cattle. Because prime means marbling, more fat. So the U.S. Raises a lot of fat. It needs lean to make the 73% or the 80 or 90%. Balance that out. You go and look at hamburger, it'll be some percent lean, some fat. And the American people don't know, but a lot of that is mixed. And so I suspect they're bringing in lean trimmings to mix with US fat as much as anything, as well as some of the emulsified out of the plants. The tailings. What does emulsified mean in this context and what's a tailing?

  50. Okay. I call them tailings, I have worked in meat processing plants and maybe that's not a good term. It's what's left on the table after the day is done kind of, you know, it's you're sitting there and you're somebody standing there trimming and so it's they pick it up, they're trimming it down the fats off the brisket or something. They put it over into a hopper, and the... Meat companies here, many decades, several decades ago, started running that through a, like you make a hot dog. Hot dog is emulsified. It goes through this machine. So it's not chunks anymore. It becomes, it's blended with fat, it becomes- Like a slurry? Yeah, kind of like a stiff slurry.

  51. But emulsifier blends it all up, cuts it up so that there's not any chunks or anything. So it's not like a... Polish sausage to where you can find a chunk of pork every now and then. It's like a hot dog that it's just, you know, you ever look at the hot dog, it's been emulsified. Did your time. Oh, heavily, heavily finely ground, I guess is a way to. Just a personal question. Did your time working in a processing plant make you more or less excited about hot dogs? I love a good hot dog. I do too. I do, too. I don't know if you can deter me from that, but you're coming close. Well, I will tell you. A good beef hot dog made in a good plant is a good hot dog. It's the ability, you know, you get bad meat. I don't know where 330,000 metric tons of beef's coming from, and it's not coming from a good solid U.S.

  52. Plant. In beef, I can't remember the statistic, but over 70% or thereabouts of those workforces are trained union shops with UFCW, the workers are high-level trained, we have inspections in our plants. But overseas, that's not necessarily the case in foreign countries. I'm not necessarily running down the road to eat a hot dog from Brazil, Argentina, or Uruguay, or someone else. But if it's a good American hot dog, Fourth of July on the grill. I'm trying to turn anybody I'm with you. Joe Maxwell, I can't think of anyone who could have explained it as well as you just did, and I'm grateful for that. Thank you very much for doing this. No, thank you for having us on. And thank you for the work that you do. We appreciate you and many folks out there now that are really getting to the bottom of what's going on. We appreciate that very much.

  53. Thank you, I tried. I know. Thank you for seeing me.

Summary

The discussion criticizes the US administration's decision to import beef from Argentina, questioning the stated humanitarian motive by highlighting the struggles of American farmers and ranchers. Key subjects include concentrated market control by a few companies in the cattle and grocery industries, leading to price gouging of consumers and underpayment of producers, which undermines free market capitalism by lacking competition. The takeaway is that both political parties have contributed to this market consolidation, necessitating renewed antitrust enforcement and competition to support American agriculture and ensure fair prices.

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