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Dec. 10, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
31:00
Rebuilding America's Farmers
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Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, look, one of the difficulties when you take over and you inherit an economic disaster and you inherit a border disaster and a foreign policy disaster is you got to repair the damage that has been done.
One of the worst things that America has allowed itself to be put in a position of, and that is, you know, that we have been used and abused and taken advantage of by countries all around the world in terms of unfair trade practices.
And yeah, the president's been right the whole time.
They've been ripping us off.
Everyone from Canada to Mexico to our Western European allies, never mind our adversaries.
And the president rightfully had to get involved and say, we're not going to get ripped off anymore.
That does, that does cause a short-term amount of pain.
Now, the president's brought in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff money, and I'm grateful for that.
And the president is now looking at those areas of our economy that have been unfairly impacted as he has tried to regain balance and, frankly, a stronger position against other countries that have been taken advantage of us.
And one of the groups that's been impacted the most are American farmers.
The Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, is with us to discuss it and update us on all of it.
Brooke, great to have you back.
How are you?
Oh, Sean, what a joy to be on.
And I tell you, just hearing you talk about our farmers, they are the best among us, aren't they?
They're like an American's American.
And so it was really special to have them in the oval with the president in the cabinet room yesterday.
And how special now to be on with you to talk about it.
Well, I appreciate it.
Explain the position that the president was in.
Explain why there is sometimes when you try to restore balance and when we're taken advantage of and the president has to get strong with other countries, you know, the transition over to a better economy or the transition over to freer and fairer trade can be a little painful and might disproportionately impact some areas.
And I would argue one of the areas would be, you know, the farmers in particular.
Well, that's right.
And listen, we talked about this a little bit yesterday.
And the president's announcement yesterday was a bridge program to get our farmers and our ranchers from, you know, what was an inherited economic crisis.
Listen, this is pretty amazing, Sean.
I don't know how closely you've tracked this, but just talking about the agriculture economy, under Joe Biden, the cost of inputs went up on average between 30 and 40 percent.
Fertilizer, 36 percent, labor, 47 percent.
This is just in the four years of Biden.
Interest rates, 73 percent, equipment, 33 percent.
Now, when you have our farmers who sort of live on the edge of profitability anyway for a lot of reasons, when you've got that massive amount of increase in what it costs to do business, you can't sustain your farm.
It just isn't possible.
Then you marry that to the fact that under Joe Biden, not one new trade deal in four years.
So I was with the president in the first term.
As you know, I was in the West Wing running his domestic policy team.
When we left in 2020, there was a $17 or $18 billion agriculture trade surplus, meaning that we sent out more of our ag goods into the world than we brought in.
And that's great for our farmers.
But do you know when we came back four years later, we now are looking at a $50 billion agricultural trade deficit?
So that is a massive swing.
And you combine that again with the cost of inputs.
And our farmers have been, they're probably as much, if not more, of a precarious position than they've been in our lifetimes.
And that is what we have to fix.
This president, if we can't feed ourselves, we will lose our freedom.
He understands that better than anyone else.
Yesterday was just one of many steps that we're taking to get back to an era of prosperity for our farmers, but a really, really important step.
From your perspective, and I know you don't have a lot of time because obviously being a cabinet secretary, you're rather busy.
We do appreciate the time you're taking with us.
For example, in the textile area, in particular, I have friends in New York, and they have been telling me their industry has been impacted greatly in terms of the raw materials to manufacture clothing, et cetera.
And my understanding is the president is working on that too.
I talked to Scott Besson about it as well.
That's exactly right.
It is, Sean, I will tell you, and I know, again, I'm so grateful to you for being such an incredible mouthpiece or narrative.
You know, you're so good at being able to explain to all of our Americans out there what we're doing.
And it's so hard when you have the fake news kind of around every corner trying to tear you down and basically undermine what we're doing.
But you get it better than anyone, and you see what's happening.
For me to see firsthand as Secretary of Agriculture, the dozens and dozens of new trade deals that have been struck, right?
You talk about opening up the markets, and it's not just important to get, you know, our rice, for example, into Japan or our beef into Australia.
These are really important things, but perhaps just as important.
By the way, Australia had not imported our beef for how many decades?
Well, and now we got it, right?
I mean, he is the chief dealmaker.
But what I'll say is this, perhaps just as important is the national security aspect of this, that no more are we so reliant on one country, for example, China, that may not have our best interests in mind, but is the biggest majority buyer of our soybeans.
So it is there's so many layers of nuance, but all so important to putting America first.
And then yesterday, let me just give you a great example of President Trump and how he works.
So we finished the meeting in the cabinet room with the farmers talking about all of these issues.
It was wonderful.
These are the president's people.
They've been with him from the moment he went down that escalator.
It took the rest of the country perhaps a minute to catch up, but our farmers and ranchers and rural communities were with us.
And so, you know, and he doesn't forget that ever.
But we finished the meeting.
It's wonderful.
He, of course, even though he doesn't have time, he's the president of the United States, invites all the farmers into the Oval Office, signs all of their name cards, gives them all pens, takes pictures with everybody.
He's just so wonderful.
But at the end, he asked a farmer named Brian from South Texas who farms soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton, actually corn, wheat, cotton, not soybeans.
And he said, now tell me what your biggest issue is.
And Brian said, listen, sir, I've got a lot of them, but probably the biggest one right now is this battle with Mexico over the water under the 1944 water treaty and just knowing what kind of water I'm going to have.
I can't even figure out what I'm going to plant next year in South Texas.
Sean, within one hour, the president had drafted a true social, had me kind of run down all the details, gets it posted.
Today, I have been on the call with lots of counterparts in Mexico, lots of my counterparts across the cabinet, and we're about to solve this for our South Texas farmers.
And again, without the president leaning in in such an aggressive, you know, way, none of this would be happening.
That's why he's such a difference maker.
Yeah.
What about the other industries that might be impacted?
What industries off the top of your head?
I mentioned the textile industry.
What industries do you think maybe need a little more attention early on until everything that the president has done in terms of the trillions of dollars committed in manufacturing investment?
And you're right, we were relying on other countries for semiconductors, rare earths.
We stopped producing automobiles or a lot of them in this country.
Manufacturing is now coming back.
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is coming back.
Couple that with the largest tax cut in history, with the most aggressive energy-dominant policies in history.
You know, I think we have laid the foundation for great economic growth down the line, but there might be, you know, some industries lagging behind any that you see that you're focused on in particular.
Well, so it's such a great question.
And again, the way you talk about it is correct.
I mean, this is the reason for the bridge payment yesterday.
We can't get all of this fixed.
We inherited.
I mean, the more I'm 10 months into this, Sean, every day I uncover a new, just devastating consequence of the policies of the last administration to think that we are having to basically unwind and completely pivot from what, frankly, from my perspective, the country was hanging over a cliff.
If the president had not won November, I don't know that we would have ever come back because just unwinding what for the farm economy and for agriculture has been like these last 10 months has just been incredible.
You know, the focus on DEI, the focus on climate change, the focus on the Green New Deal, all of that had to be undone.
To your point, when we take tax cuts, when we take bringing down the cost of the inputs, when we take all the new trade deals that are coming online, when we take the one big beautiful bill, that was the largest investment in rural America in history.
All of these things combined are going to move, I believe, our farmers and ranchers to an era of prosperity they haven't seen in their lifetime, perhaps their dad's lifetime and their granddad and grandma's lifetime, but it's all going to come together and it's really important.
Until then, to your point, things like textiles, things like cotton, cotton's really struggling right now.
Rice, our California rice guys are doing fine, but the rice in the rest of the country is really struggling because of some dumping from India and other places.
Shrimp, et cetera.
It's just, it isn't just realigning the tariffs themselves.
That's really important.
But these non-tariff trade barriers, the way that so many of these countries have taken advantage of our country in America in dumping their products, it really is about onshoring, reshoring, being able to feed ourselves just the way he talks about manufacturing in most of our agriculture community as well.
So I could list for you for days, apples are at 50% in America, what they need to be at.
Shrimp way down.
Rice is struggling.
We've had more farm bankruptcies in the last few years than we've seen perhaps in our lifetime.
I mean, all of this has come to a head.
But again, I think yesterday was such a great pivot.
And the interesting thing is, and I know I'm probably talking a little too much, but I do want to say this, that when you look at a lot of the polls and when you look at rural America and agriculture on how they're feeling, even though they're facing the toughest economic times, they're seeing some of their neighbors closed shops, selling for houses or whatever, even though you're seeing that the actual morale and the sort of optimism,
when these rural America farmers are looking at the future, they actually, it's very high.
They feel very optimistic.
They believe in President Trump's vision.
They know we're working around the clock for them.
And that's really encouraging, too.
And that's what's a big part of the messages from our farmers that the president got to hear yesterday.
Just a big thank you for putting it all on the line for them.
Well, we appreciate all that you're doing.
And I want everybody in the country to be successful.
I mean, you know, when your business is hurting and people are suffering, they put everything on the line.
We are, you know, we should be that shining city on the hill and the land of hope and opportunity and prosperity.
And I see that all coming back.
And I'd love that, you know, new golden age in America once again.
And I believe it's coming.
Anyway, Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture, we appreciate your time as always.
Thank you.
Oh, Sean.
On your show with you.
So it's an honor to be on.
Thank you.
All right, let's hit our busy phones.
Matt is in Utah.
Matt, hi, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Good, good.
Thank you, Sean.
And thank you for your perspective on America.
I love it.
So I just want to say about the narco-terrorists and the illegal immigration that I think Americans that don't know about those things, they need to go on right alongs.
I'm a 35-year veteran.
I was a chief of police for the last 14 years.
And I noticed that citizens that went riding with the police and responded to runs and saw the murders and the homicides, the rapes, the robberies, the shootings occurring because of drugs in America, they start thinking very differently about what's going on.
Most people are not impacted by violent crime in America.
There's 21,000 murders a year at its hype, when it went up to over 30% 2019 to 2020.
And, you know, now I hear from these, the liberal left that, oh my gosh, homicides are down 15%.
That's like buying something that's got a 30% hike in price, and then they give you a 15% discount.
You're still losing 15%.
I'm just, I'm really sick and tired of hearing about, you know, you just had somebody on there not supporting ICE in their job to get rid of illegals in America.
Nobody's against immigration, legal immigration.
Most of us are legal immigrations, except for those that have ties to families that fought in the Revolutionary War.
We're settlers.
But my point is, nobody's against legal immigration.
And when I hear them say that, well, illegal immigrants only commit a small percentage of the crimes occurring in America, but they didn't have a right to be here to begin with.
Yes, citizens here commit murders.
We know there's 21,000 murders a year in America, and it's most of them committed by citizens.
But all the murders, rapes, robberies, and no offense, the $250 million that was embezzled by the federal governor from the federal government in Minneapolis by the illegals living there.
And for them to come out and say they don't support getting rid of them, you know, we've got, what, a $30 trillion national debt?
I don't even know what it's up to anymore.
Let me tell you something, only because of the constraints of time.
Saving American lives and ending this epidemic of drug use and abuse and death has to happen.
It's that simple.
And, you know, again, the Democrats find themselves on the wrong side.
Americans don't want these drugs in the country.
Those that are bringing them in are enemies of our country.
Not that complicated.
Appreciate the call.
Quick break.
Right back.
More of your calls.
Straight ahead.
Draining the swamp.
One corrupt politician at a time.
This is the Sean Hennedy Show.
I-25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941.
Sean, our number.
If you want to be a part of the program, your call is coming up momentarily here.
Linda and I have a dispute over Christmas music.
I love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Mannheim Steamroller.
I don't mind some of the older hits that we all grew up with, but she wants to go back to Bing Crosby.
Santa Claus is coming due to the money.
I love Bing Crosby.
And Danny.
But I love that the music is so deep and impactful because it's all those songs done in a new, innovative, creative way.
I just, I like the new version of it.
I like the music you're talking about, but I have to tell you from the bottom of my heart.
Do you like the music I'm talking about?
Okay.
I do.
But here's the problem.
Our lives.
Not a problem.
It's my show.
It's called the Sean Kennedy Show.
You know, God gave you two ears and one.
No problem.
Hello.
You said there's a problem.
I take issue with that.
The problem is that our lives most of the year are incredibly intense.
There's no time for anything.
There's no time for time.
Christmas is the one time we actually take off.
And you play this music, which is beautiful music.
You know, I'm a musician.
I love it.
I love the orchestra.
I love the way that it has been to the butt.
Oh, my God.
But it's a little intense.
And we're intense all year long.
I like a little Burl Ives.
I like a little, you know, jingle bell rock.
I like a little, you know, white Christmas.
You like little Frosties.
I love Frosty.
It's one of the best movies.
I like religious music for Christmas because I want to be reminded of God.
And, you know, I understand the Santa Claus part.
I understand the Frosty.
How could you forget?
Okay.
Are we done now?
Nah, I got it.
I could go to the next one.
Listen, I want to save people money.
I think people like that.
Our wireless company, Pure Talk, a veteran-owned company, they are amazing and they share your values.
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By the way, do you hear this?
Does Jacob Fry, I guess he's the mayor of Minneapolis, he says he will not allow police to cooperate with ICE.
Well, that sounds to me, and I'll play it for you, like he's encouraging people to break the law.
Listen.
The message that we are sending to our Somali community, to our Latino community, to any community that is being targeted, is that we stand with you.
Minneapolis is not backing down.
Our police officers will not coordinate with any federal agency that is doing immigration law enforcement work.
We stand with the communities, the community members that make Minneapolis the extraordinary place that it is, and we aren't backing down it.
We're rock solid in support of them.
Okay.
Well, you know, this is now the Democratic Party.
People are saying, Annette, are you worried about the midterms?
I worry about every election, to be very blunt, and every vote is going to matter.
And there's a certain urgency going into the midterms.
I don't want the progress that Donald Trump has had this last year to stop.
And I'm very confident that the economy is going to turn dramatically, that everybody's going to be impacted in a positive way once the policies of the president get infused into the economic bloodstream.
But, you know, time will prove me right or wrong.
And I believe that will be proven right.
History has proven it over and over again.
And I believe in that.
And then people can decide, do you want to return to the failed policies of the past?
Do you want to embrace the party of open borders and defund and dismantle the party of cradle to grave, womb to the tomb, the party that voted against the largest tax cuts in history, the party that lives on a toxic brew of nonstop, never-ending Trump hatred?
Or do you want to keep progressing as a country so that we're an opportunity society based on liberty and freedom?
And these people have gone nuts.
By the way, you know, the comedian Jeff Dye, I had him on the program last night.
He's really funny.
I like him a lot.
He's leaving California, blaming the leadership of Gavin Newsom, the United Socialist Utopia of California.
Listen.
I'm kind of in this kind of LA thing.
And I could be guilty of being a victim of like what I'm absorbing in my algorithm.
But like Gavin Newsom scares the out of me.
And I don't want to be a part of it.
Yeah.
He wants to run the whole country, too.
It's wild.
Wild.
Pretty wild.
And the fires were quite a wake-up call for even if, you know, whatever you believe about the fires, the way it was dealt with was pretty scary.
It was not competent.
That's for sure.
Even the aftermath.
Let's go to California, the United Socialist Utopia of Gavin Newsome.
Arlene, you're on the Sean Hannity show.
Where in California are you?
Sean.
Hi, Sean.
It's great to talk with you finally.
I wanted to let you know as you're bagging on all of us out here in California, 40% of us did vote for Trump.
And we have an incredible assembly member, Carl deMafer.
He's from District 75.
He is fighting left and right to help the conservative movement out here.
You really need to have him on your show.
He's incredible.
But I can't move.
My grandkids are here.
My children are here.
And I think people have short-term memory of what Newsom has wanted to do.
We all know what he did during COVID, but what he also wanted to do that he was pushing by 2030, he wanted us, everybody to have all gas appliances, including restaurants, you know, so no more hot water heaters, gas stoves, gas dryers.
And he wanted everybody to own electric vehicles.
And what the other thing people forget is he wanted to give illegal immigrants up to $150,000 in interest-free loans for them to purchase homes.
And he ended up not signing it because I think he knew it would kill his bid to become a president of the United States.
Look, I actually welcome if he's now the frontrunner for the Democrats.
I welcome this debate.
I want to remind everybody of the failure under his leadership.
And Gavin's got one big problem.
He's not really factored in.
He can go as hard radical left as he wants.
But I'm telling you right now, it is not going to fly in a lot of the country because he's been so extreme radical left.
Momdani would not get elected nationwide.
And Gavin Newsom, I think, will have a very hard time.
Republicans just need to stay smart.
Stay the course.
Appreciate the call.
800-941-Sean is on number.
All right, back to our busy phones.
Dino, he's in Queens.
He's in New York, where Linda talks like she's from New York, even though she lives in, she grew up in Philly, in the suburbs of Philly, in the projects, as she calls them.
Is that true, Linda, by the way?
Not anymore, Boro.
Well, you did.
Back in the day, I'm from Philly.
Yeah.
And where did you grow up?
In public housing?
I did.
No, I didn't grow up in public housing.
I lived across the street from public housing.
Oh, okay.
I got that.
Thank God.
I apologize.
Dino, Dino, what's going on?
How you doing?
Sean, you are a great American.
I really love you.
No, I'm heterosexual, but I love you, man.
I love you.
And I'm out of the world.
You didn't take it the wrong way.
Don't worry.
I appreciate it.
I can't do the show without you, to be honest.
You're a pillar to the flag.
Yes, sir.
Well, you know, let me tell you something.
We are all spokes in a wheel to save our country, save for future generations to do our part.
And we're all in this together.
And that's why I want to fight so hard.
It's worth fighting for.
I don't get nervous, but I'm a little nervous talking to you.
And I've been listening to you.
If I tell you over 30 years, do you believe me?
Over 30 years, I've been listening to you.
I do believe you, and I'm very grateful for that.
But why would you be nervous?
Because you're talking to a friend.
Because I'm speaking to the guru of radios, man.
And, you know, I just don't see myself.
Now, if you were talking to Levin, I could understand maybe being a little nervous because he can be a little impatient.
Get off my phone, you big dope.
I mean, he does do that occasionally.
Yes, he had me laughing.
Yes.
I want to just tell you everything.
I never voted for presidency in my life.
When I heard Trump was running, I voted all three times.
My father's United States Army veteran.
Okay, I lost him in 81.
Anyway, I've been living in this home.
I've been living in this home since birth in Elmhurst, Queens, New York.
I've been living in the home.
Wow.
Yeah, since birth.
And yes, I do agree with all what Trump is doing with the narco-terrorists.
To me, it's a no-brainer.
You blow them out of the water.
Everything he has done, hands down.
But I hope Trump is listening to me today.
I just lost my mom at 96.
We were paying for.
I'm sorry about losing both your parents.
I am.
I've been there.
So to me, the war on the home front is important too.
I'm so hurt with the taxes.
I lost my mom.
She was paying $4,000.
My tax is now $12,000.
I don't know if I can make it, Sean.
I sure hope that this penetrates somewhere deep because I understand he's doing a lot for the country.
But what about the U.S. American homeowners, citizens that have been living one lifetime in their homes?
I don't know if I can pay this.
I lost her from $4,000.
They upped it to $12,000.
I don't have it.
I mean, they up the property taxes by eight grand?
Yeah.
Because you took ownership of the property.
It went from her name to your name?
Yes.
Oh, boy.
I mean, this is what's pathetic about how government works.
You live there your whole life, which is amazing in and of itself, to be honest.
I don't know many people that never move in their lives.
That's pretty amazing.
But I don't know what to tell you.
I want to give you good advice.
And the only thing I can tell you is the following is right now, because of Mamdani, home prices, you know, in the suburbs have gone up a whopping 25%.
And maybe this, this is not an option for you, but maybe you should consider it.
Maybe, you know, you could sell your place at a nice profit and get another place.
And may I suggest something else?
I don't know.
I know your family's probably up in New York, but you can get a ticket on JetBlue fairly inexpensively, and they have flights all out of Florida back and forth all day.
It's like a shuttle.
And so, what I might suggest to you is maybe get to a little warmer weather.
About 70, look at the exact temperature.
I'm sure you're very interested in this because it's freezing.
I could not wait to get the hell out of there yesterday and get back to my free state of Florida.
And it's great to be on.
Right now, it's six.
I'm sorry, 72 degrees where I am.
I'm sorry.
What's the temperature where you are?
Oh, it's cold, but I do like the cold, Sean.
And honestly, I'm going to be straight with you.
My dad died in this alley.
His car ran him over.
And I feel like this is where I'm going to live next.
So I don't want to leave, but I'm sure as hell hurt that I have to pay these numbers because I don't have it and I don't want to lose my home.
And this is something I wanted to bring.
And I agree with everything Trump is doing for the world.
Oh, yes, I do.
But this is a major, major factor for me.
And I got two young kids.
I got a four and a five.
That's another story.
One day I'll invite you over for dinner.
But and I wish you the best of luck.
You are a charm.
And you, I wish you both the best of luck.
I was so happy to hear that for you.
Well, I appreciate everything.
Thank you for sticking with me all this time.
I'm humbled.
I'm grateful.
And if we can help you with ideas, I know a lot of people in the real estate business in New York that might be able to help you and would probably do it at a very reduced rate as a favor to me.
All right.
You can just get in touch with Linda or anybody on my staff, okay?
I thank you for everything, Sean.
You're a great American, like I said in the beginning.
I thank you.
And I'm just every day I wake up and I worry.
I just worry as a homeowner that's been here forever.
And I just know, listen, I get it.
And, you know, they have no consideration at all at the impact on people like yourself on a fixed income.
And then somebody that is, you know, like your mom passes away.
And the only thing that changed is a piece of paper.
And now they're pricing you out of your own home.
I don't want to like rub it in, but in the free state of Florida, the one thing that has gotten a little out of control are property taxes because so many people moved here.
And with the constant turnover, if you domicile and homestead in Florida, you lock in your property taxes.
And I think the most it can go up a year is it's either 2% or 3%.
And Governor DeSantis is going to put a ballot initiative in 2026 where people can vote to, you know, maybe even eliminate property taxes altogether and put a tourist tax in its place.
I mean, I've visited other countries.
I pay a tourist tax.
Why don't they charge it here in Florida?
You want to come down in the wintertime?
Okay, you could pay a little bit of the tax and take that burden off the people of Florida.
But I wish I could give you a better solution.
I'll think about it.
Stay in touch with my team.
800-941-Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break.
When we come back, does the president have the legal authority to take on narco-terrorists?
We'll check in with our legal team as we continue.
More of your calls coming up as well.
800-941-Sean is our number.
This is an iHeart podcast.
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