“ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY!” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear delivers a DEVASTATING warning about farmers who backed Donald Trump – and now face soaring costs, lost customers, and the possibility of losing their livelihoods!
Appearing on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, Beshear described the growing financial nightmare facing Kentucky soybean farmers, many of whom enthusiastically supported Trump only to find themselves squeezed by his tariffs, the Iran war, and a string of decisions that have made their lives harder.
“I've got soybean farmers,” Beshear told Maher. “100 percent of them voted for Trump.” Then he walked through what has happened to them.
First, he said, farmers lost a customer when the Trump administration dismantled USAID, which had purchased American agricultural products to feed hungry people overseas.
“Because if we feed starving countries, they like us better,” Beshear explained. “It makes sense for soft power.”
Then came the cancellation of a federal farm-to-school food purchasing program that helped connect American farmers with school cafeterias.
Next, Trump's tariffs helped drive China, a major buyer of American soybeans, toward competing suppliers in countries such as Brazil.
And now the war in Iran has sent diesel prices through the roof, making it vastly more expensive to operate tractors, combines, trucks, and other equipment farmers depend on.
The war has also disrupted fertilizer supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz, adding another punishing expense for farmers already struggling to make ends meet.
“And so you've got all these farmers who supported Trump so strongly that are on the verge of declaring bankruptcy that don't even know if they will plant their crops.”
And this is no imaginary crisis.
An AP investigation earlier this year documented soybean farmers struggling with depressed crop prices, rising equipment and fertilizer expenses, Trump's trade war with China, and fuel costs driven higher by the Iran conflict.
Farm bankruptcies have been climbing nationwide, and the administration has announced billions in additional assistance for struggling farmers. But temporary government checks cannot automatically restore lost export markets or erase the cost of filling a combine with diesel.
Beshear's account captures a painful reality in Kentucky’s farm country and beyond: Families who have spent generations working the same land are confronting economic pressures that threaten everything they've built.
And for farmers wondering whether they can afford to put another crop in the ground, the question is no longer which politician they supported.
It's whether the family farm will survive long enough for another harvest.
