{"id":13179,"date":"2026-07-22T03:36:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13179"},"modified":"2026-07-22T03:36:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:36:35","slug":"john-kennedy-asks-if-shrimp-will-make-people-grow-new-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13179","title":{"rendered":"John Kennedy Asks If Shrimp Will Make People &#8216;Grow&#8217; New Ear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Sen. <strong>John Kennedy<\/strong> (R-LA) flat-out asked Agriculture Secretary<strong> Brooke Rollins<\/strong> on Tuesday during a hearing whether eating foreign shrimp and oysters will cause Americans to \u201cgrow an extra ear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At a Tuesday Senate hearing, Kennedy pressed Rollins about safety protocols concerning imported seafood after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/tv\/we-need-straight-answers-gop-senator-scolds-hegseth-for-iran-answers-in-testy-hearing-exchange\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">asking<\/a> Secretary of Defense <strong>Pete Hegseth<\/strong> about the ongoing Iran war and the state of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre shrimpers farmers?\u201d Kennedy asked Rollins as he pivoted subjects and noted he was pushing his allotted time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbsolutely, yes. They\u2019re farmers of the sea,\u201d Rollins answered.<\/p>\n<p>The secretary then gave the same answer about oyster harvesters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre they having to compete with other countries who grow oysters and shrimp in a ditch and shoot them full of antibiotics?\u201d Kennedy asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c100%, yes,\u201d Rollins said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd if you eat too much of that foreign shrimp and oysters, you\u2019ll grow an extra ear, won\u2019t you?\u201d Kennedy asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not sure about that, but I know it is not good,\u201d Rollins said. \u201cAnd I also know we import 90% of our shrimp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy aren\u2019t we inspecting the shrimp and the oysters from abroad?\u201d Kennedy asked as he was warned he was over his time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, it goes much larger than that. Why are we importing so much from abroad, which goes to the president\u2019s trade agenda?\u201d Rollins said.<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Alien<\/em>, and he warned about \u201cradioactive shrimp.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy argued imported seafood is caught, stored, and moved in unsafe conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe shrimp is radioactive! I kid you not. It has a radioactive isotope in it called cesium-137. It\u2019ll kill you! Even if it doesn\u2019t turn you into the alien, if you eat this stuff, I guarantee it\u2019ll grow you an extra ear,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/john-kennedy-warns-of-radioactive-shrimp-accompanied-by-photo-of-alien-chestburster-on-senate-floor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Watch above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 \u201cgrow an extra ear.\u201d 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/jk.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}