Republican senator asks Trump cabinet official if eating ‘foreign shrimp’ will make people ‘grow an extra ear’

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) flat-out asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday during a hearing whether eating foreign shrimp and oysters will cause Americans to “grow an extra ear.”

At a Tuesday Senate hearing, Kennedy pressed Rollins about safety protocols concerning imported seafood after asking Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about the ongoing Iran war and the state of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Are shrimpers farmers?” Kennedy asked Rollins as he pivoted subjects and noted he was pushing his allotted time.

“Absolutely, yes. They’re farmers of the sea,” Rollins answered.

The secretary then gave the same answer about oyster harvesters.

“Are they having to compete with other countries who grow oysters and shrimp in a ditch and shoot them full of antibiotics?” Kennedy asked.

“100%, yes,” Rollins said.

“And if you eat too much of that foreign shrimp and oysters, you’ll grow an extra ear, won’t you?” Kennedy asked.

“I’m not sure about that, but I know it is not good,” Rollins said. “And I also know we import 90% of our shrimp.”

“Why aren’t we inspecting the shrimp and the oysters from abroad?” Kennedy asked as he was warned he was over his time.

“Well, it goes much larger than that. Why are we importing so much from abroad, which goes to the president’s trade agenda?” Rollins said.

Tighter inspections of imported seafood have been a subject Kennedy has pushed before. In a Senate floor speech in the fall of 2025, Kennedy took to the Senate floor with an image of a bloody alien from the 1979 film Alien, and he warned about “radioactive shrimp.”

Kennedy argued imported seafood is caught, stored, and moved in unsafe conditions.

“The shrimp is radioactive! I kid you not. It has a radioactive isotope in it called cesium-137. It’ll kill you! Even if it doesn’t turn you into the alien, if you eat this stuff, I guarantee it’ll grow you an extra ear,” he said.

Watch above via CNN.

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