INDIANAPOLIS – Rep. Braun indicated that he’s fine with Hoosier farmers suffering harm and called on them to accept “short-term pain” from recent tariffs in a radio interview last Thursday, continuing his woeful misunderstanding of the damage these tariffs are causing.
Rep. Braun took to the Chicago radio airwaves Thursday morning, where he gave perhaps his most heartless comments yet about farmers who are struggling to even sell their crop at cost. On the Morning Answer with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson, Rep. Braun said, “almost everyone that I’ve spoken to, and especially farmers… know that there’s got to be a little short-term pain for long-term gain.”
Thursday morning featured some of Rep. Braun’s most remarkable comments demonstrating his failure to understand the effects of the recent tariffs that have begun destroying many farmers’ livelihoods. However, they’re not the only time he’s made such remarks; in an Indy Star article published just the next day, Rep. Braun had the same sentiment, stating that “some Hoosiers will face short term challenges” from the tariffs. Rep. Braun has also previously called on Hoosier farmers to “take a leap of faith” and said that the tariffs’ impact on Hoosier farmers and manufacturers has been “overdramatized.”
“It’s the height of arrogance to call on hardworking farmers to accept a little pain for your personal political benefit, and Rep. Braun ought to be ashamed of himself,” said Michael Feldman, spokesman for the Indiana Democratic Party. “The lost farms, livelihoods, and markets that corn and soybean farmers have spent decades building up aren’t a short-term struggle, and the damage won’t be fixed quickly. Rep. Braun has proven time and again that he’s unconcerned with the struggles of Hoosier farmers, and it’s just as clear farmers can’t trust him to stick up for them in Washington.”
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