Trump & MAGA Freeze USDA Funds & BETRAY Farmers! - With Will Westmoreland | The Don Lemon Show
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What prompted Don Lemon to invite Will Westmoreland to discuss USDA funding freezes?
So anytime we can come to a consensus or have really a conversation where there is some constructive, something constructive comes from it, I like to do that. And I think I can do that with Will Westmoreland, who I've been watching his work on social media. And Will, welcome to the Don Lemon Show. You've been doing such a great job. Thank you for joining us.
You bet, Don. Thank you. I appreciate you taking this topic, you know, onto the show. It's important.
So we're going to talk about a couple of things, but I want to, one of the things that caught my eye, a lot of things that you do have caught my eye, but this one thing in particular, because it informs people. And that is what you, Skylar, who was a cattle rancher, right?
Yeah. Or we call him the cattle farmer here in Missouri.
Yeah. So what happened? Did you catch his stuff or did he respond to something from you or how did you guys, what happened?
You know, the genesis of all this is I saw his videos on TikTok and he had basically come on and said, hey, I signed up for these programs through the USDA. I signed contracts and I expended money to pay for these things I wanted to do on my farm. And I got a letter recently telling me everything was on hold. And it was a lot of money. It was $80,000. And for a farmer or rancher, that's a significant amount of money. And he was worried he was going to lose his farm. And when he made that video, I mean, there's a lot of this happening out there right now. The response from everybody was like F.A.F.O. You know, you voted for the guy. You deserve whatever happens to you.
And I just let me tell you, let me say this. I think it's important because of your background, because you said you don't believe in F.A.F.O., but you are in the farming industry.
I do a couple of different things. Yeah. I'm an agroforestry farmer, which a lot of people don't know what that means, but I farm mostly tree nuts and berries and mushrooms and things like that. But I also owned with my mother, 300 cow-calf operations. So we raised cattle back in the day and I grew up on a farm as well. So yeah, I've got a background and am currently involved in agriculture. And then in addition to that, I've been really politically active for over 30 years in rural, you know, agriculture and political issues. So it's kind of a nice conservative. I am more of a centrist. I have never I've only voted a straight ticket one time, but I would call myself a Democrat. I want to be right up front about that.
OK, so then what happened when you saw Skyler's post and you wanted to correct him on some misinformation you believed?
I just felt like this. I don't mean to call him a kid because, you know, I'm an older guy, but I just felt like here's a younger, you know, farmer that's reaching out for some answers. He's worried about losing his farm. And I totally understand the whole FFO approach to things. But I thought, I think this might be a person who's willing to listen and have a conversation. What I did is I took his video and I stitched it and I just said, hey, if you're willing to listen to an older farmer down here in Southwest Missouri, I want to explain to you some of the reasons why people are upset with you and why you're in the position that you're in. I did that video and And holy cow, Don, I like woke up the next morning and I had 100,000 new followers on social media.
And I do want to say that Skylar's reached out to me in a message and we're having a back and forth right now between each other. And I think we're going to try to get together and talk. But he's learning and I'm learning about where he's coming from too. Also, everybody says in the comments, Project 2025, didn't you read that? That's his platform. Hey Skylar, my name's Will Westmoreland and I'm a farmer down in Southwest Missouri. And I just wanted to reach out to you and tell you that I am not an FAFO kind of guy. We probably disagree with each other on everything political. But there's a very specific reason why people are getting upset with you.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What prompted Don Lemon to invite Will Westmoreland to discuss USDA funding freezes?
0:13–8:45
2
Who is Will Westmoreland and what is his agricultural and political background?
8:45–12:21
3
What happened with the TikTok rancher Skylar that exposed frozen USDA payments?
12:21–33:07
4
What specific Project 2025 changes did Will say threaten farm subsidies and conservation programs?
33:07–39:31
Speakers
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