Scott Bessent appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo and made the preposterous claim that immigrants have brought their diseased cattle across the border with them, which has caused the price of beef to skyrocket in price. Recent reports claim that beef could actually hit $10 per pound next year; but according to Bessent, the rising cost of beef has absolutely nothing to do with The Fascist Felon’s failed economic policies but everything to do with immigrants and an issue the administration ‘inherited.’
“Because of the mass immigration, a disease that we’d been rid of in North America made its way up through South America as these migrants brought some of their cattle with them,” he said. “We’re not gonna let that get into our supply chain.”
“There’s also, because of the mass immigration, a disease that we’d been rid of in North America made its way up through South America as these migrants brought some of their cattle with them,” Bessent said.
He added: “So part of the problem is we’ve had to shut the border to Mexican beef because of this disease called the screwworm.”
There is little to no credible evidence that migrants traveling north into the U.S., otherwise a highly perilous journey ordinarily undertaken with only the barest essentials, have been seen routinely transporting or smuggling live cattle at a scale that would affect the domestic market.
Similarly, there have been zero confirmed animal detections of the disease in the U.S. since the outbreak was first recorded in Mexico last November. While there has been at least one documented human case, it was recorded in Maryland after a resident of that state, which is almost 2,000 miles from the border with Mexico, had made a trip to El Salvador.