Transcript: Trump’s Fury at Prices Goes Wild as Crushing New Polls Hit

But the funny thing is, if you want to fix prices, this isn’t the way to do it, is it? No, it’s not. Bessent, who has the reputation of being one of the more rational members of Trump’s administration, had this sort of pathetic performance on one of the Sunday talk shows where he was asked about beef prices—which shot up—and he blamed it on New World screwworm. He said migrants were coming across the border and they were bringing New World screwworm, which was killing our cattle.

This is completely ridiculous. Try and get a mental picture of this. New World screwworm—every once in a blue moon, a human gets it. I think we had the first case where a human got it last August; it was the first case observed in 50 years. This is a disease that spreads from cattle to cattle. What he seems to be suggesting is that migrants are sneaking across the Rio Grande with cattle, where they’re sure not to get noticed, right? It’s absurd.

Sargent: That actually occurs to me. If they’re actually going to say that, he’s basically saying that our border is so porous that you can just walk in with a herd of cattle and not get noticed. Doesn’t seem like a good argument to me. Well, let’s listen to a little more of some of these bad arguments. The message blaring forth from the administration right now is that everything’s just fine. Prices are falling everywhere. Listen to this from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. She admits beef prices are a problem, but then says this.