'Not okay': Disappointed ranchers go on expletive-filled rant against Trump
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he makes an announcement about an energy infrastructure project in Alaska, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 30, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he makes an announcement about an energy infrastructure project in Alaska, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 30, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
October 01, 2026
ALTERNET
Ranchers in battleground states are furious about diesel prices and beef imports. According to a new report published on Thursday by the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner, not only has the situation made said ranchers cursing mad toward President Donald Trump, but it could “cost Republicans a Senate seat in Kansas.”
“He doesn’t know what s—— is coming out of his mouth,” one particularly blunt farmer told the Examiner when asked about Trump’s performance. As the paper explains, “High diesel prices, expensive feed, pickups that cost almost as much as a house, and escalating land prices are putting the squeeze on the state’s cattle industry. Kansas produces almost a quarter of the nation’s beef and the issue has moved to the center of a tight Senate race, heaping pressure on the Republican candidate, Sen. Roger Marshall. And then there was the decision by President Donald Trump to lift tariffs and allow in hundreds of thousands of tons of ground beef from Central and South America.”
“I’m disappointed in Trump and the cattlemen’s association for not raising cane,” said 82-year-old rancher Chuck Madron. “They’re letting cattle in from Uruguay. They’re letting beef in from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. What about us ranchers? Diesel is over $6.”
The high cost of diesel is being felt by everyone, stockyard owner Tylen Layton told the Examiner, saying it is driving down the prices of cattle at auction. His numbers show that the cost of moving an animal has risen by $1.50 per mile. “It just changed the whole dynamics of everything,” he explained. “You know, people can’t afford to give as much for the cattle now because they’re trying to afford the trucking to get them to their final destinations.” That translates to a reduction of $40 to $60 per 100 pounds, or about $300 to $600 less per head.
What’s more, writes the Examiner, “Trump’s move to allow in cheap exports has exasperated locals, who see it helping meat processors, or packers, or McDonald’s, but not shoppers or ranchers.” As Layton explained, “The problem is that we haven’t done the first thing to make beef cheaper for the Wichita, Kansas, housewife or the New York City housewife. They’re hurting us, making it cheap for the packers, but the packers aren’t going to bring their prices down when they sell it to the retailers.” According to the Examiner, ranchers are also concerned about an ICE crackdown on meatpacking plants in the state. As the paper explains, “The fear is that processing will grind to a halt if staff — mostly immigrants, some legal, some undocumented — stay home. The result is an outpouring of frustration with the Trump administration, which people see as too close to voters on the coasts and too far from beef country.”
As a result, “Democrats see an opening in a state that has not let them have a look in since the 1930s. Their challenger, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, took a 2-point lead over Marshall in a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.” In a recent debate, Hamilton blasted “trade wars, which actually in the last Trump administration cost beef farm beef ranchers in Kansas a billion dollars in trade that went to Brazil and Argentina.” He also decried the “diminishing of the workforce and arresting the workforce,” asserting that it was “making it harder for people to work in the livestock industry,” adding, “This is not okay.”
For his part, Marshall attempted to defend the tariffs, though he later gave a nod to political reality, toning down his once full-throated endorsement for immigration enforcement to signal a degree of disquiet. “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”
“That leaves Kansas ranchers, like farmers across the country, dealing with crippling diesel prices,” writes the Examiner. “Jim Moore, a fourth-generation rancher, said it costs him $2,000 now to fill up his three tractors. A president who made much of his support from the farming community, he said, had forgotten his friends when they needed him.”
Ranchers in battleground states are furious about diesel prices and beef imports. According to a new report published on Thursday by the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner, not only has the situation made said ranchers cursing mad toward President Donald Trump, but it could “cost Republicans a Senate seat in Kansas.”
“He doesn’t know what s—— is coming out of his mouth,” one particularly blunt farmer told the Examiner when asked about Trump’s performance. As the paper explains, “High diesel prices, expensive feed, pickups that cost almost as much as a house, and escalating land prices are putting the squeeze on the state’s cattle industry. Kansas produces almost a quarter of the nation’s beef and the issue has moved to the center of a tight Senate race, heaping pressure on the Republican candidate, Sen. Roger Marshall. And then there was the decision by President Donald Trump to lift tariffs and allow in hundreds of thousands of tons of ground beef from Central and South America.”
“I’m disappointed in Trump and the cattlemen’s association for not raising cane,” said 82-year-old rancher Chuck Madron. “They’re letting cattle in from Uruguay. They’re letting beef in from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. What about us ranchers? Diesel is over $6.”
The high cost of diesel is being felt by everyone, stockyard owner Tylen Layton told the Examiner, saying it is driving down the prices of cattle at auction. His numbers show that the cost of moving an animal has risen by $1.50 per mile. “It just changed the whole dynamics of everything,” he explained. “You know, people can’t afford to give as much for the cattle now because they’re trying to afford the trucking to get them to their final destinations.” That translates to a reduction of $40 to $60 per 100 pounds, or about $300 to $600 less per head.
What’s more, writes the Examiner, “Trump’s move to allow in cheap exports has exasperated locals, who see it helping meat processors, or packers, or McDonald’s, but not shoppers or ranchers.” As Layton explained, “The problem is that we haven’t done the first thing to make beef cheaper for the Wichita, Kansas, housewife or the New York City housewife. They’re hurting us, making it cheap for the packers, but the packers aren’t going to bring their prices down when they sell it to the retailers.” According to the Examiner, ranchers are also concerned about an ICE crackdown on meatpacking plants in the state. As the paper explains, “The fear is that processing will grind to a halt if staff — mostly immigrants, some legal, some undocumented — stay home. The result is an outpouring of frustration with the Trump administration, which people see as too close to voters on the coasts and too far from beef country.”
As a result, “Democrats see an opening in a state that has not let them have a look in since the 1930s. Their challenger, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, took a 2-point lead over Marshall in a recent Emerson College/Nexstar poll.” In a recent debate, Hamilton blasted “trade wars, which actually in the last Trump administration cost beef farm beef ranchers in Kansas a billion dollars in trade that went to Brazil and Argentina.” He also decried the “diminishing of the workforce and arresting the workforce,” asserting that it was “making it harder for people to work in the livestock industry,” adding, “This is not okay.”
For his part, Marshall attempted to defend the tariffs, though he later gave a nod to political reality, toning down his once full-throated endorsement for immigration enforcement to signal a degree of disquiet. “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement,” Marshall posted. “Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”
“That leaves Kansas ranchers, like farmers across the country, dealing with crippling diesel prices,” writes the Examiner. “Jim Moore, a fourth-generation rancher, said it costs him $2,000 now to fill up his three tractors. A president who made much of his support from the farming community, he said, had forgotten his friends when they needed him.”
Texas Gov Greg Abbott addresses former U.S. President Donald Trump in Weslaco, Texas, U.S. June 30, 2021. Brandon Bell / Pool via REUTERS
October 01, 2026
ALTERNET
The right wing can't stop the changes in Texas.
Houston Chronicle journalist and columnist Chris Tomlinson reported on Thursday that Fort Worth, Texas, isn't what it once was — and those changes likely won't end with the 2026 midterm election.
Tomlinson spoke to Republican state Senate candidate Leigh Wambsganss, who once said that she wasn't merely a MAGA Republican but she was “Ultra-MAGA." Like Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), however, she began scrubbing President Donald Trump from her website. In fact, she's removing the word "Republican" too.
"The once bright red color is now dark blue," said Tomlinson.
"Wambsganss made her name as political director for Patriot Mobile, a Christian nationalist wireless provider that backed fundamentalists in school board elections," the Chronicle reported. "She was once considered a shoo-in on the party’s conservative fringe, where Fort Worth politicians have traditionally done well."
That has changed significantly. Wambsganss previously lost the seat to Democrat Taylor Rehmet in a Feb. 2026 special election.
The report said the state is experiencing one of the biggest political shifts since 1820. Demographics are changing, economics are changing and with it the social shifts and politics come with it.
Now, Wambsganss' campaign is looking a lot like Rehmet's.
"Her strategy of running away from her past begs the question: Are voters leaving the Republican Party, or is President Donald Trump’s Republican Party leaving them?
The important part to know about the Fort Worth area is that it wasn't along ago that "white men chased Black Union soldiers from a polling station in Falls County," Tomlinson recalled from a story his great-grandfather told him. His grandfather was a member of the Dallas Klan, believing that "God intended for them to rule the world." The Klan controlled both Dallas and Forth Worth.
In all of Texas' 254 counties, "Fort Worth and Tarrant County have always leaned hardest to the right," the reporter explained.
Rehmet told him, “They've lost a lot of folks in the middle. We can talk here all day about Republican-Democrat, but most people are just regular working folks. They don't have the luxury to really be super politically active. They're working two jobs. They're taking care of their kids. And those are the folks that I think of whenever I'm ready to go serve, because that's the majority of this district.”
Tony Ortiz, the publisher of the right-wing daily newspaper Current Revolt, said that a lot of this comes down to immigration and the harsh policies from the Republicans to remove anyone who may look like an immigrant, regardless of whether they are criminals, documented or not. It isn't isolated to Latinos either; he said that those in North Texas are worried about "South Asians and Muslims."
The Tarrant County diversity shift began in 2015, though whites still dominate the county's population.
“A lot of this is like a sudden realization of an entire demographic realizing that they are becoming the minority,” Ortiz said. “You blink and you’ve got all of these temples and restaurants and mosques and different driving habits and different languages, and you think, ‘Whoa, what happened?’”
“You think, ‘I need to do something,’ but you’re a little late in doing something. You should have been doing something maybe five, seven or eight years ago,” he explained.
Ortiz identifies as "brown," and accepts his Mexican American heritage.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are set to appear in the state this week, where they will celebrate all of the work they've done on "the economy," another report from the Houston Chronicle said.
The right wing can't stop the changes in Texas.
Houston Chronicle journalist and columnist Chris Tomlinson reported on Thursday that Fort Worth, Texas, isn't what it once was — and those changes likely won't end with the 2026 midterm election.
Tomlinson spoke to Republican state Senate candidate Leigh Wambsganss, who once said that she wasn't merely a MAGA Republican but she was “Ultra-MAGA." Like Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), however, she began scrubbing President Donald Trump from her website. In fact, she's removing the word "Republican" too.
"The once bright red color is now dark blue," said Tomlinson.
"Wambsganss made her name as political director for Patriot Mobile, a Christian nationalist wireless provider that backed fundamentalists in school board elections," the Chronicle reported. "She was once considered a shoo-in on the party’s conservative fringe, where Fort Worth politicians have traditionally done well."
That has changed significantly. Wambsganss previously lost the seat to Democrat Taylor Rehmet in a Feb. 2026 special election.
The report said the state is experiencing one of the biggest political shifts since 1820. Demographics are changing, economics are changing and with it the social shifts and politics come with it.
Now, Wambsganss' campaign is looking a lot like Rehmet's.
"Her strategy of running away from her past begs the question: Are voters leaving the Republican Party, or is President Donald Trump’s Republican Party leaving them?
The important part to know about the Fort Worth area is that it wasn't along ago that "white men chased Black Union soldiers from a polling station in Falls County," Tomlinson recalled from a story his great-grandfather told him. His grandfather was a member of the Dallas Klan, believing that "God intended for them to rule the world." The Klan controlled both Dallas and Forth Worth.
In all of Texas' 254 counties, "Fort Worth and Tarrant County have always leaned hardest to the right," the reporter explained.
Rehmet told him, “They've lost a lot of folks in the middle. We can talk here all day about Republican-Democrat, but most people are just regular working folks. They don't have the luxury to really be super politically active. They're working two jobs. They're taking care of their kids. And those are the folks that I think of whenever I'm ready to go serve, because that's the majority of this district.”
Tony Ortiz, the publisher of the right-wing daily newspaper Current Revolt, said that a lot of this comes down to immigration and the harsh policies from the Republicans to remove anyone who may look like an immigrant, regardless of whether they are criminals, documented or not. It isn't isolated to Latinos either; he said that those in North Texas are worried about "South Asians and Muslims."
The Tarrant County diversity shift began in 2015, though whites still dominate the county's population.
“A lot of this is like a sudden realization of an entire demographic realizing that they are becoming the minority,” Ortiz said. “You blink and you’ve got all of these temples and restaurants and mosques and different driving habits and different languages, and you think, ‘Whoa, what happened?’”
“You think, ‘I need to do something,’ but you’re a little late in doing something. You should have been doing something maybe five, seven or eight years ago,” he explained.
Ortiz identifies as "brown," and accepts his Mexican American heritage.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are set to appear in the state this week, where they will celebrate all of the work they've done on "the economy," another report from the Houston Chronicle said.
