‘Can’t Be Serious’: Trump Official Roasted for Bizarre Take That Migrants Bringing Cattle With Them Are to Blame for Higher Beef Prices

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a bizarre claim on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo that proved to be a head-scratcher for some on social media.

Bartiromo asked Bessent about a comment made by the CEO of Omaha Steaks who claimed Americans are heading for $10-a-pound ground beef.

“Well, Maria, the beef market is a very specialized market,” Bessent began. “It goes in long cycles. And this is the perfect storm, again, something we inherited.”

Bessent went on to make the strange claim that migrants have been bringing diseased cattle with them across the border.

And there’s also, because of the mass immigration, a disease that had been — we’ve been rid of in North America made its way up through South America, you know, as these migrants brought some of their cattle with them. So part of the problem is we’ve had to shut the border to Mexican beef because of this disease called the screw worm. So we’re not going to let that get into our supply chain. And, again, I don’t want to focus on one product. It’s a very important product. And if we are laser-focused on this product —

Bessent then pivoted to talk about inflation, but social media had questions about his previous comment.

Chuck Todd wrote, “Huh? Talk about a ‘big if true’ (narrator: it’s not true) — this has to be A.I. slop, can’t be a serious take from the Sec. Of Treasury?”

And other observers were equally befuddled.

Although Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did suspend Mexican cattle imports to the United States due to screwworm concerns, there’s no information to suggest that South American immigrants have been bringing cattle across the U.S. border.

Economists blame President Donald Trump’s tariffs on “beef from Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, feed, farm equipment and machinery” for driving up the cost of beef in the United States.

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