Louisiana MAGA Republican Senator John Kennedy brought visual aids to a presentation on the floor of the United States Senate on Wednesday. Standing next to a creature called a "chestburster" from the 1979 film Alien, Kennedy claimed people would end up looking like the juvenile xenomorph if they ate imported shrimp from Walmart.
The video was so bizarre that people thought it must be a deepfake making fun of the MAGA minion Senator. But all suspicions of trolling were dispelled when, proud of his performance, Kennedy posted it himself on X and YouTube—where he shared his full five and a half minute diatribe.
You can watch an excerpt here:
Multiple news outlets shared the bizarre moment...
...including the foreign press.
Kennedy stated:
"...this is a photograph of the alien from the movie 'Alien.' This is what you could end up looking like if you eat some of the raw frozen shrimp being sent to the United States by other countries. Now let me tell you what I’m talking about."
"If you eat it, why could you in--how could you end up looking like the alien in the 'Alien'? Because the shrimp was radioactive. I kid you not. It had a radioactive isotope in it called cesseeum [sic] 137."
"It'll kill you. Even if it doesn't turn you into the alien, if you eat this stuff, I guarantee you'll grow an extra ear."
There's no medical or scientific evidence to support any of Kennedy’s claims.
"How could this happen in America? This is unconscionable. I'll tell you how. Because that shrimp, that, that shrimp from other countries which don't abide by the same rules that we abide by in America, which if you eat it will turn you, may turn you into the alien, that at a minimum will you, uh, will cause you to grow an extra ear."
"It's not being inspected. It's supposed to be it's supposed to be inspected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We call it NOAA. It's part of the Department of Commerce. And yes, they're, they're inspecting some of it, about 1%, on a good day, 2%."
Kennedy—a very vocal Trump supporter—seems to forget that NOAA was gutted by DOGE, then slashed again by the GOP-backed, Project 2025-mandated, Trump-proposed One Big Beautiful Bill/Act that Kennedy voted for.
"The United Kingdom inspects 50% of the foreign seafood coming into its nation. Even China does a better job than the United States of America. This is unconscionable... There is no excuse for it. There is no excuse for it."
Kennedy then launched into dubious claims about food safety practices outside the United States before recommending people only eat Louisiana shrimp.
His unhinged rant and ridiculous claims drew widespread mockery online—especially on Kennedy's own X post.
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AquaStar USA Corp. of Seattle, Washington, announced a recall of refrigerated cocktail shrimp sold at Walmart stores in 27 states between July 31 and August 16 and bags of Kroger-branded cooked, medium peeled, tail-off shrimp sold at stores in 17 states between July 24 and August 11.
Wholesale seafood distributors are pulling cases of frozen shrimp sold to grocery stores across the eastern seaboard, according to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration notice.
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