{"id":426709,"date":"2026-01-24T08:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/426709\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T08:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:55:10","slug":"i-literally-spit-my-coffee-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/426709\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I literally spit my coffee out’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A North Dakota Reddit community<\/a> is pushing back on U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after he claimed to understand the struggles of American farmers.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporter Martha Raddatz about China’s soybean boycott on ABC’s “This Week,” Bessent’s answer raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n

“Martha, in case you don’t know it, I’m actually a soybean farmer, so I have felt this pain, too,” Bessent said, according to CNBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Reddit<\/p>\n

The comment gained traction<\/a> in the r\/northdakota<\/a> forum, where a Reddit user shared a post titled: “Just your average ND *Billionaire* Soy Bean Farmer.”<\/p>\n

The post features images of Bessent alongside a sprawling waterfront Charleston mansion and states that the property is worth $22 million. It also states that Bessent owns $20 million in North Dakota farmland that he rents out to working farmers.<\/p>\n

CNBC reported that official filings show Bessent holds agricultural land in North Dakota valued between $5 million and $25 million. Those filings indicate he collects between $100,000 and $1 million in rent per year from the property.<\/p>\n

Before becoming Treasury Secretary, Bessent ran a hedge fund. A Forbes<\/a> report published in June put his wealth at roughly $600 million.<\/p>\n

Beijing was the largest buyer of American soybeans for years, spending $12.8 billion on the crop in 2024. But when the trade conflict escalated this year, China cut off those purchases, leaving U.S. growers without their biggest customer.<\/p>\n

Commenters in the Reddit thread weren’t buying Bessent’s claim<\/a> of shared struggle.<\/p>\n

“When I heard him say this today, I literally spit my coffee out,” one Reddit user wrote<\/a>. “He’s a corporate land owner with other rich people. Farmers rent his land. He has no idea of the financial burden farmers are going thru right now.”<\/p>\n

Another questioned the scope of his holdings, writing<\/a>: “$20 million dollars worth is pretty broad. How many acres and where at?? No matter what it’s already started. We need to watch out for these thieves making their way in.”<\/p>\n

Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices \u2014 and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD’s exclusive Rewards Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A North Dakota Reddit community is pushing back on U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after he claimed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,202932,2807,4666,41499],"class_list":{"0":"post-426709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-martha-raddatz","11":"tag-north-dakota","12":"tag-scott-bessent","13":"tag-u-s-treasury"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}