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Massie on Fox: Washington Is Afraid to Do Anything That Will Get Them Unelected

Sep 1, 2026 · 10:14 foxagriculturefood-freedomprime-actcongress

Fox sit-down: Congress rushing home before the midterms, below-market beef imports, and a pitch for the PRIME Act in the Senate farm bill so small processors can sell in-state without USDA permission.

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  1. The three weeks that the Senate will be back before the midterm elections will I think first vote on clarity. It's going to be
  2. a vote on the second day we're back. We get back in the 14th. We're going to vote on it on the 15th to see if we can proceed to the measure. And if we do that, I think there's a good chance that
  3. we can pass clarity before the elections. But I do think prior to other than that, we're we're going to work on national defense authorization act. We're going to work on
  4. you know, permanent funding. We're going to work on a farm bill. There's lots of things that we need to to work on, but I don't expect floor votes or passage until we get past the election, quite
  5. honestly. I just don't see Democrats facilitating or or participating in that. >> North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer warning me on this program little may
  6. get done before the midterm elections. The House is back in session this week with Speaker Mike Johnson planning to put the Senate passed shutdown averting spending bill on the floor today. But
  7. lawmakers could leave Washington early, potentially leaving DC until mid-November as several major priorities remain stalled over in the Senate including the Clarity Act and a new GOP
  8. spending package. Now with the Senate set to return September 14th for just 3 weeks, many House Republicans they want to head home. Many have to campaign.
  9. Let's bring in Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie. Congressman, I want to get your thoughts on what Senator Cramer said to me yesterday. He just doesn't think that these things are going to get
  10. passed before the midterms. And the House has done so much work to get a lot of these big pieces of legislation over to the Senate. Your thoughts?
  11. >> Yeah, I actually agree with Senator Cramer and everything he said there. The Democrats are want they are going to want to pull another card from the deck in November before they decide to deal
  12. with us Republicans. I think there will be a lot that gets done in the lame duck session. And so and you know, people in Washington DC are afraid to do anything
  13. that'll get them unelected. So they're afraid to take these votes. They're going to punt and tell after the midterms, I'm afraid. >> All right. Well, certainly there you
  14. know, you mentioned the farm bill and and Senator Senator Cramer, we're going to talk about that in a moment cuz you know that's important to you. But I'll ask you about this. The Department of Justice shut down nearly 300 truck
  15. driving schools in 23 different states. And these federal agencies are trying to crack down on the fraud that surrounds these commercial driver's licenses. Now,
  16. the administration's targeting 110 schools that are called the greatest offenders with 160 more accused of lacking proper testing space or using
  17. unlicensed instructors. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin, they they're saying tens of thousands of illegal licenses were
  18. issued during the Biden administration. Congressman, you're a member of the House Transportation Committee. I want to get your initial thoughts on this and what you heard yesterday because
  19. certainly some of these illegal drivers, we've seen many stories where people have died on American roads because of this.
  20. >> Well, you know, that's been my first question and I think everybody's first question is how did these people get a license because they do have accidents. And that's when you find out that
  21. they're not legitimate or safe drivers. So, I applaud what they're doing. I am you know, it's going to cause some pain if there really are 10,000 people who
  22. aren't going to be licensed that are driving trucks right now. There's already a shortage there. I'm certainly not advocating for having illegal untrained
  23. drivers that can't speak English. I'm just saying we should be prepared for another crunch on in that sector
  24. labor or ability to do it. But there are Americans who can and will do those jobs. It's a great job for veterans. A lot of truck drivers are veterans and we
  25. should try to set that pipeline up better for them. >> Certainly, certainly and that is something that is needed and you're and you're right. We do still have a trucker shortage, but at the same time, you
  26. know, you want safety on the roads in our nation. I'll want to you about this. This has become a big political issue. It's a business story, the data center debate uh has really erupted uh and it's
  27. underway. You know, Americans are trying to weigh the rollouts that are coming into their communities of these data centers. President Trump is firing back at at the opposition. He wrote on Truth
  28. Social, "The only reason the communities throughout the US uh should not want data centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If they want to be successful and rich with far lower
  29. taxes and jobs all over the place, let data reign." The good news is that there's plenty of other places that that want them. And you know, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal this morning, Congressman writes, uh "The
  30. data center panic in US decline." And they talk about the fact that maybe these companies haven't messaged this very well. They go into these communities uh and they need to do a
  31. better job of communicating. And we've even seen uh Governor Abbott in Texas say that he's worried about data centers as a moratorium. Governor Josh Shapiro,
  32. he's also said that he's concerned about the the rollout of these data centers. And I know that you and uh and Rocata have been talking about this as well.
  33. >> Yeah, there's uh the only thing less popular than Congress right now, I think, is data centers. And it's because I think they've been insensitive to where they're placing these data
  34. centers. We don't want them in our cow pastures. We don't want them in our cul-de-sacs. But there are a lot of old factory sites. They're called brown sites where the ground is already
  35. polluted. And by the way, there's already a grid hookup there where the old steel mill or whatever, you know, the old injection molding factory went
  36. out of business. Put them there. And let the local communities decide these things. The problem I've seen here in
  37. Washington, D.C. is you have these data center lobbyists who try to get special legislation here at the federal level so that they could override local zoning
  38. decisions. And that's bad. So, I don't think you should let data reign, you know, without any kind of uh regulation at the local level. You definitely need
  39. to let local people decide these things. And one of the problems is these local elected officials sign non-disclosure agreements. The people don't know these
  40. data centers are coming until there's one night all of a sudden at the town hall meeting where they take a vote and boom, it's done. I think people, like you said, the the companies need to be
  41. more sensitive. They need to make their case and they need just like solar panels, quit putting them in our our pastures, put them, um, you know, where nobody else wants to
  42. build. >> Yeah, well, there's already 5,400 data centers in the nation. So, everybody that's on a Zoom call or ordering a food online delivery, you know, that's that's
  43. that's data centers. But, it's certainly become a a big debate across the country and a political debate as well. Uh, I want to talk to you about so, about beef prices. So, President Trump is moving to
  44. give American ranchers more control over the processing and the selling of their own beef. Now, this is a Truth Social announcement. So, he wants to authorize
  45. legal documents giving farmers and ranchers this right. Aiming to break what he calls a monopoly in the meat industry. Montana Congressman Troy Downing was on the program earlier with
  46. me. Here's what he told me about this. I want to get your reaction. >> In Montana, we are cattle country. I've got more more cows than people. So, we
  47. we look at this pretty, pretty seriously. I've talked about this 300,000 metric tons of beef that's coming in. In
  48. the grand scheme of things, it's it's not it's not that big overall in the beef production in America. But, we do need to really look at what we can do to
  49. regrow the herd. Here's what I'm concerned about with that is if you drop prices when ranchers are bringing cows to market, it forces them sometimes, if
  50. they're, you know, just barely towing the line, to sell more calves than they would otherwise. So, it actually reduces their herd size. So, I'm I'm hoping that we can see some recovery there. Or the
  51. other part is is if there's, you know, insecurity in the market, then our ranchers may not invest in heifers for next year and are not growing the herd.
  52. >> So, ground beef prices are up more than 10% from a year ago. We're at $6.89 a pound in July. That was up from $6.25 last July, Congressman. You want
  53. Congress to pass the PRIME Act. This would remove barriers for local meat processors. You actually originally introduced this back in 2015,
  54. and then you've reintroduced it. Tell us more. >> Yeah. Yeah, so in 2015, the you know, there was a slap in the face to cattlemen in
  55. the United States. They got rid of mandatory country of origin labeling. I think we should bring that back. But in the absence of it, the real problem is there's a a bottleneck. There's only
  56. four meat processors. They're monopoly, oligarchy, if you want to call it. Some of them are foreign owned, and they have been responsible for driving up the
  57. price of beef in the grocery store while the price of cattle remains low. You know, we've been talking about why uh people are attracted to socialism. The
  58. beef market is a good example of let capitalism work. When prices get high, yes, there is some pain, but that's a signal to farmers that you need to start
  59. keeping your heifers instead of turning them into beef, turning them turn them into mama cows, and then that'll solve the problem. I'm afraid that what the
  60. president did with the announcement of bringing in 300 metric tons of 300,000 metric tons of argent or beef from overseas is that he's diddling with
  61. capitalism, and now the signal to farmers is "Whoa, it might not be profitable to keep your heifers and rebuild the herd." So, uh yeah, we need
  62. the PRIME Act. It basically just says, "If you're a small processor and you're only selling within your state, you don't need the federal government's permission to do that transaction. You
  63. could be regulated at the county level or the state level, like restaurants are." You know, the local health inspector goes in, gives you a grade, puts it on the wall. People can decide,
  64. "Do I want to eat at a B- minus establishment, or am I going to keep looking for an A+?" And we could do the same thing with these small local processors, and it would be safe, it
  65. would be local, accountable. It's in the farm bill, in the House version of the farm bill. You know, we talked about what's going to happen before the midterms and after the midterms.
  66. The Senate needs to put the PRIME Act If people are watching this, call your senators and tell them put the PRIME Act in the Senate farm bill so it matches
  67. the House farm bill. That's the real solution. >> Senator Cramer said to me yesterday, he's like, "I want Americans to eat American beef." So, there you go. >> He's He's a sponsor of the PRIME Act.
  68. >> Yeah, there you go. Congressman Thomas Massie, it's great to have you on the program. Thanks for joining us. >> Thanks, Cheryl. >> All right, we'll be right back, everybody. >> [snorts]

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