and then you got on the show and said he needs to take a look at these uh processing plants because they control it it's a monopoly and they charge us too damn much was he listening to you because he put out the true social and now he's taking action my friend you

know he's a smart guy he's a reasonable guy he listened you know he got a lot of pushback from from our ranchers you know we We were disappointed in bringing in 300,000 metric tons of beef.

We were disappointed in Brooke Rollins for not standing up for the ranchers.

He's trying to balance it out.

God bless him.

He's going to allow us to sell basically direct consumer and cut out these four big packers that own 85% of the processing.

Two of them, which are foreign-owned.

They're still going after them.

Will this move the president is making depress prices and take money out of the pockets of Texas cattle ranchers?

Well, it's a bad move for a couple of reasons, Joe.

Number one, it doesn't do anything to build a cattle herd.

It absolutely does not.

And second, even more important, it adds to our agriculture trade deficit.

The previous administration left us a $50 billion ag trade deficit.

First time in my lifetime that's ever happened.

So based off of what you're outlining, are you saying that this is more a federal issue, a way that the federal government could put forward solutions? Or are there other things that the state should be taking into consideration when it comes to supporting America's cattle ranchers?

Yeah.

I really disagree on, on, on this too, and it's not so much that I'm upset with, uh, uh, Donald Trump, and ranchers aren't really upset with Donald Trump so much as it is his, his advisor, his cabinet.

Uh, Brooke Rollins should have clued him in on this that this was a bad idea.

Number one, it doesn't rebuild the cattle herd.

It, it makes it worse.

It do- and, and it makes our agriculture trade deficit, $50 billion, worse not, not better.

So it has two negative a- aspects.

Yeah

As the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, uh, what do you think about this policy?

Well, Donald Trump doesn't have a bigger supporter in Texas than me.

I mean, I've been with him from the very first when he came down the escalator.

Uh, I've always backed him.

He calls me Trump's man in Texas, but this is the second time I've had a disagreement with him.

The first one was when he brought in Argentine beef.

Uh, this is a mistake, uh, on, on several fronts.

Um, what do you think about that number? Do you think it's, that's, do you think that's right?

What's going on from your point of view?

Well, it's just a runaway train.

We don't have any guidelines.

guide rails around this industry here in texas our counties have no ordinance making authority so we just matter of fact we just passed virginia we're the number we're number one in data centers in the nation right now so we've got about 500 of them by the way that's more than china china did a moratorium at 470 so we're going to have about 5 000 across the whole country so The AI data center race is over.

It's not an issue.

We won.

So just take that issue off the table.

yet.

I spoke to Miller about the screwworm and why he's been frozen out of the efforts to contain it.

We could have stopped it.

It, it, it wasn't an ef- we-- I, I went to the USDA and reminded them that they had two, two, uh, assets, two tools that they could use.

Uh, they were already using the sterile insect technique, SIT, uh, which is where they release, uh, sterile flies, and they mate with the fertile flies, and, and they, you know, don't produce any offspring.

But it's not enough.

It's never been enough.

So I was encouraging them to, while we had it bottled up in southern Mexico, to go ahead and use the SWAS system.

A rancher who finds screw worm in, on his ranch, if he reports it, what happens and is it, are they disincentivized to report it?

Where do we stand today as we're dealing with this outbreak of New World Screw Worm?

Well, we have 1,100 miles of Mexico infested.

They've moved from southern Mexico 1,100 miles north.

Now they're in Texas and New Mexico.

Yesterday, we had 11 more cases just south of the border, within 30 miles, some of them 30 miles of the Rio Grande.

The odd thing about the 11 yesterday, and it's not that odd, it's getting pretty common, eight of the 11 were in dogs in one catch.

So a lot of dogs.

As we ramp up to try to kind of battle this thing and push it back, where do we stand in terms from your opinion on how we're doing with that?

What's your response, sir?

Well, I'm the most serious person when it comes to screw-worms.

That's, that's absolutely a, a, a fact.

I'm the one working harder than anybody to, to stop, stop this pest.

What, what they did is that they told ranchers, "Look, if you have a suspected case, send it to us.

If it comes back positive, we'll quarantine your ranch." Well, and they left it at that.

Uh, they've walked that back since and said, "You know, uh, if we find a screw-worm on your ranch, you're, you're not, we're not gonna shut you down.

... saying, like, that the-

How is Ms. Rollins and the USDA and the Trump administration doing now in your opinion? And with the quarantined area and the ramping up of production, Are we going to be able to handle this before it gets out of hand?

No, it's out of hand already.

It's here.

It's hit the United States.

In 20 months, you know, we've released 7 billion sterile flies in Mexico.

And it's moved 1,100 miles north and entered the United States.

So what we're doing is insane.

Panama years ago? Whose call was that?

Can you explain what's going on to us and where things stand with the screwworm in Texas?

Well, the screw worm is a larva that's laid by a fly in open wounds, and then it eats live living flesh.

And the reason they call it screw worm, it just burrows, burrows deeper and deeper into the flesh.

So it's like something out of a horror movie.

It's atrocious, it's putrid smelling, it's not good.

So what we've been doing since 1930 is releasing sterile male flies.

The ideal is that the male fly will mate with a female, and the offspring will be sterile, and they only mate one time.

Sure.

And quite frankly, on the affordability issue, you need some of that, correct?

Well, yes.

The biggest thing, this is huge, uh, for Texans it is.

Uh, we got our water bill paid.

They're paying it, they agreed yesterday.

Uh, we have a 1944 water treaty.

We sh- we share the Rio Grande and share the water in it.

It's all in the soil.