MUST WATCH: John Kennedy Ruthlessly Interrogates Witness Over 'Price-Fixing' Claims

thank you madam chair interesting questions um Mr Maxwell are you're a farmer is that right yes Senator excuse me you used to be a farmer or you still are yes Senator I uh grew up on a farm I'm fourth generation Missouri farmer um my brother does most of the farming I do this activity more I do have uh degrees in a economics and a law degree uh but uh I still actively Farm I've got over a hundred use on the farm uh we have Hogs uh production where kind of the Diversified traditional Family Farm type operation lease out some of the land to the neighbor boy yeah well America was born on a farm so thank you for that thank you Senator uh Dr Owens you you talked about uh in order to commit a crime crime you have to have means motive and opportunity is that right yes sir and you you you have suggested that it's not an optimal optimal situation to have well strike that let me just get after it here what crime are you accusing the four major food companies of praise God in sir okay you you you think they're price fixing in some cases absolutely okay name the four companies that you are accusing of price fixing in the grocery sector or more broadly the four you've been talking about I mean so I think name me every company that you think is price fixing and violation of the any trust La yeah I mean so the the most recent example that I think is worth considering is is agats but if you if you don't mind we'll come back and do the examples name me the companies who you're accusing of price fixing well the first one is agats with the which the Department of Justice has sued uh for for price fixing who else um you know in the grocery sector we've got um you know we've got Walmart we've got Kroger um Walmart Walmart is price fixed no I I haven't accused them of price fixing what I what no what I've said is that they are able to expand expand their Mark start over here I want you to you you price fixing is a is a serious crime doc you can go to jail for that and I want to be out sure I understand your testimony who are you accusing of price fixing yeah look what my testimony clearly states that no tell me which companies you're accusing of price fixing you said some were price fixing and I want to know which ones yeah I mean look I may report them myself the the company that's absolutely under investigation by the doj which ones are price fixing I think the I think I think the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice should take a close look at the four major Grocers they should take a close look at the four major me Packers there answer my question pation which companies are price fixing um Tyson is a great example uh the large Tyson the large Meat Packer who the big the big four Meat Packers are all who else um like I like I said I think looking at the four major Grocers make sense which four price fixing Walmart Alberts Walmart's price what I didn't say they were I I said taking you just said they were you can't come here and say and imply their price fixing and then say their price fixing that's a serious allegation you can be sued for defamation I said we should take a close look at the let me go back I want to be sure understand your testimony are you telling me right here today that you're accusing Walmart of price fixing I'm not personally accusing Walmart of price fixing I am suggesting who are you accusing of price fixing that's a serious discharge neither my written testimony nor my oral testimony makes explicit legal claims so you're not accusing anybody of price fixing no I have pointed out that the Department of Justice is currently looking at are you accusing price why won't you answer my question who are you accusing a prize fix I'm I'm pretty sure I have answered your question no you hav just tell me the names of the companies one by one what's the first company that you're accusing a price fix I I've mentioned agats is currently Agra what agats all right who's number two I said uh Tyson's is currently under investigation for price fixing who's number three I've also said that I think the Department of Justice and the FTC should take a close look at who number three major grocery who number three is Walmart prize fixing I think that they should take a look at is Walmart pricee fixing they should take a look at it is Walmart price fixing I can't currently answer that question I said that the dep you won't answer that question how about Albertson's is Albertson's price fixing the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission is Albertson's price fixing should take a close look at that is Albertson's price fixing again I think the Department of Justice should take a close look you don't want to say no I I I mean look I'm not at the FTC I'm not at the doj yes ma'am but you you've accused these companies of breaking the law and I think that that you ought to have the courage to say in front of God and Country what you believe now you either do or you don't look I believe that when companies get larger and larger what you believe but you're waing like a catfish okay it's easy to coordinate price Dr Anon I think it's been well established that if we discovered Life on Mars tomorrow Joe Biden would send it money to what extent has his deficit spending contributed to inflation and do you know of any of these companies would you care to accuse someone of a crime here today and if anybody else would just let me know if somebody is price fixing I want to know I'll report them myself and I'm going to want to see your evidence otherwise you subject yourself to defamation but let me go back to my original question what was it Mars was it Mars or Jupiter I got is the amount of money that President Biden has insisted on spending contributed to inflation duh what's your answer to that well Senator regarding the price fixing I have no evidence because there is no evidence of that so I can't provide that to you but to answer the uh hypothetical on Mars uh absolutely that would add to inflation and yes the deficit spending uh under this president but really under any president doesn't matter that it's Joe Biden in particular in the White House doing it uh any person who did if any person did what he did it would have the exact same effect which is this massive runup in prices because again it's not that things are more valuable it's that the dollar is worth less so it takes more dollars to buy exactly what you used to uh and if you look at again the Biden administration's own data these aren't my figures these are figures from the Biden Administration they show that prices paid by businesses and prices paid by consumers have gone up almost exactly the the same about 19% during his tenure and so this idea that that somehow uh the the prices that consumers that you ey that uh all of the people that you represent are paying are somehow the the cause of anything other than cost simply being passed on to them the data simply don't support that okay how about you doc uh excuse me uh no evidence no I'm not accusing any one of price fixing um are you a lawyer by chance I'm sorry are you a lawyer by chance oh no I'm not uh just an economist okay what happens if you accuse somebody of price fixing and they they didn't do it I probably don't want to be that person you got good insurance yeah no I'm not not doing that okay go ahead um as far as the fiscal uh the fiscal stimulus stuff you know that's a standard uh economic model and you can go back and look um multiple people Olivia Blan Olivier Blanchard is won um some of the upperbound estimates on how big the shortfall in demand was after covid and the shutdowns um so like one of the largest upperbound estimates that I've seen is about $680 billion do just the covid package of 1.9 trillion that's already almost three times the size of that so that that's you want to go now sure all right let the record reflect that the senator from Louisiana is far more loquacious than the Baptist preacher and that's a high standard uh War thank thank you so much Madam chair

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Length: 9min 20sec (560 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2024