Interview: Michael Shively of News Channel Nebraska Interviews Donald Trump - October 5, 2026

Mr. President, welcome to the Cornhusker State. You're here on behalf of Sen. Pete Ricketts and Gov. Jim Pillen.

That's right.

What is it about these two candidates and their races that has you campaigning for them here in person?

We're, they're outstanding people. I know them both very well. I've dealt with them. I've sent a lot of money to this state, as you know. And Jim and Pete, they just, you just can't find finer people or people that love your state and your people more. They're great.

Well, it's harvest time here in Nebraska.

Right.

The farmers, getting in their combines, their grain trucks, driving to the pump, seeing $6 diesel.

I know, I know.

Gov. Pillen, he wrote a letter to your office about 10 days ago asking to suspend foreign, uh, diesel exports for 90 days. Is that a proposal you'd consider, especially given this time in the farming calendar?

Well, we're doing a lot better than that. One thing is we're bringing up $12 billion of subsidy to get in. Uh, where do you do that? The car fuel, the gasoline goes up a little bit. Uh, we also have a contribution from Europe. They're gonna contribute billions of gallons of diesel. They have a lot of diesel.

They've had it in Europe. And so we're gonna get it down. But it's all gonna come pouring down as soon as the war's over, which will be very soon and we will not have Iran having a nuclear weapon. And that's gonna be, I, and I say it and I say it proudly, a relatively small price to pay for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of a lunatic nation.

They're a lunatic, the worst nation anywhere in the world, the most dangerous nation. They're defeated. They will not have a nuclear weapon and gas prices and, uh, that includes diesel will come pouring down, and it's gonna happen very soon.

Well, the courts have shut down in attempts to adjust mail-in voting for this November, but it's something you wanna do in the long term. Nebraska has a lot of mail-in voters.

Yeah.

Matter of fact, 11 counties are mail-in only, including the county immediately south of here. Generally, the voter turnout is better in those areas. What's your long-term plan for mail-in voting? And is it possible to have considerations for extremely rural areas where it's simply tough to get to the polls in person?

Well, it is, and I did very well with mail-in voting in Florida and all other states. And I'm all for mail-in voting, but I have to keep, we have to keep it honest. So maybe you have to request a ballot. You know, in some, some places like in California, it's a total disaster. Millions of ballots are sent all over the place.

Nobody knows who's getting them except for the people sending them. And they go in many cases to the wrong people. So, and, and I mean in a lot of cases. So mail-in ballots are fine. We have to make sure that it's honest, that's all. We just want one thing very simply. We want honest elections.

Well, Mr. President, we're in cattle country here.

You are.

Uh, this is the number one beef state in the country. And it, it was striking to see the universal condemnation across Nebraska for your choice to import 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef with no tariffs and try to sell it at a lower price. What, uh, what message do you have to ranchers across Nebraska who are struggling to make a profit?

So I have been better to ranchers and to farmers than any president in history. But the price for the consumer has gone through the roof. So on a very short-term basis, I brought some in from a couple of different countries, I guess Argentina, Brazil, just a little bit. It really became unacceptable to the voter.

And we do have to get elected because if we're not gonna get elected, your ranchers and your farmers are in big trouble if the Democrats got in. So on a very limited basis, we did it. But you have to understand, so we have the lowest herds that we've ever had, or that we've had certainly in the last 50 or 60 years.

We have to get the herds up. It takes a while to do that. Uh, the ranchers have made, and farmers have made more money with Trump in office than any other president in history. There's never been a better president for ranchers and farmers. I did this one little thing because I think it's very important and it ends very quickly.

And I'm not looking to renew it, but I do want them to produce more. They have to produce more so we get the price down a little bit.

I don't know if you're gonna get a meal before you leave Nebraska, but let's imagine you have a Nebraska steak on your plate. What would be your preferred cut?

Well, I think porterhouse is exce- -- honestly, I like them all. Unlike, uh, "Talafreako" in Texas where he's a vegan and all of a sudden he eats steak and he's not happy. He goes and throws up after he eats it. He's not -- this is a vegan. This is a guy that likes lettuce, not, uh, steak. But with me, I think there's no doubt about it. I'm all for steak.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you very much. Great to see you. Thank you.