After repeatedly criticizing the Biden administration for inflation that was mostly brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic that President Donald Trump failed to control, Fox News has been much more lenient over Trump’s failure to immediately bring down consumer prices like he promised. Now, Fox & Friends is reaching for a new excuse for Trump’s failure to reduce grocery prices — falsely suggesting that “our supply of beef” is at 70-year lows following the Biden administration. In fact, data shows that the U.S. produces more than three times as much beef as in the 1950s, and Trump’s imminent implementation of tariffs on Canada and Mexico will likely increase beef prices.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, over the weekend he announced his department is going to create what’s called an “affordability czar” to focus on where they can make the biggest difference to help working class Americans.…
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): It’s perfect timing that they would announce that because tomorrow night when the president has his joint session for Congress, what the Democrats — according to Politico in Playbook today — what the Democrats are going to start to highlight is the one issue that they think can bring them back to power in the next election, and after that, the presidential. And that is the economy. And so what they’re going to start talking about is how these Trump tariffs that could go into effect tonight at midnight, would cost the average American family $1,200. So that’s going to be the message from the Democrats.In the meantime, the affordability czar is going to figure out how to bring down costs for stuff that everybody is buying — like Lawrence, you just talked to the egg lady, eggs are too high. They are absolutely too high. Groceries cost too much. The cost of beef is through the roof, but a lot of people don’t realize that, you know, over the last couple years — given drought and supply chain and everything else — a lot of farmers have gone out of the beef business. And in fact, our supply of beef is lower than it’s been since 1951. So, the reason that chuck roast is $45 at my grocery store, it’s supply and demand. It’s that easy.
LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): We haven’t had an administration in the past four years that were focused on the farmers, getting rid of the regulations so they could expand. You know, I asked the egg lady earlier, which is the best type of egg. And her message was we need all of the eggs. And I think that’s what we need right now. How do you boost productivity and supply in all of these areas? That’ll bring the costs down.
Doocy seemed to be citing figures for the number of cattle currently being raised in the U.S., which are indeed at multidecade lows, rather than for beef production itself. According to industry publication Feed-Lot Magazine, “Beef production per cow increased from less than 250 pounds per cow in 1950 to over 660 pounds per cow currently,” meaning that the same number of cattle in 1951 would produce almost three times as much beef today. Indeed, historical records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that in 1951, the USDA graded 6.25 billion pounds of beef — while in 2021, the most recent year available, the USDA graded 21.62 billion pounds of beef — more than three times as much.Additionally, the Trump administration is set to make beef more expensive thanks to its planned 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, scheduled to begin tomorrow. USDA data shows that Canada and Mexico are among the largest sources of beef and veal imports into the U.S., and virtually all U.S. cattle imports are from Canada and Mexico as well.
Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones also suggested that farmers are better off under Trump than they were in the previous administration. However, Trump’s first term trade war was so disastrous to U.S. farmers that his administration paid them unprecedented levels of support, with farm bankruptcies jumping nearly 20% just in 2019 even with the bailouts.
