Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

0:00Secretary Rollins, thank you for joining me here. Can you call me Brooke? Brooke. I didn't... I mean, I'm wearing a tie. There's a degree of formality. You just came from a cabinet today. I did. Food security is national security. America's the largest -ag exporter in the world. These farmers don't want all these checks. No one wants to hand up. Exactly. No one wants to hand up. $15 billion a year is spent on soda. Taxpayer dollars. These spend on sugary drinks and junk food. that's making our kids sick. Absolutely not. Does that mean we shut them down? Does that mean no? Of course not. Part of that was having 300 executive orders drafted.

0:38We did it all very quietly. No one really knew what was happening. We're not here for the people to serve us like some monarchy. We're here to serve the people. I'm here in Washington, D .C. at the U .S. Department of Agriculture to interview the 33rd Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins. We just had an amazing conversation talking about Brooks background, the work she's doing at the USDA, the impact DOJ is having food stamps, the sentiment of the American farmer, tariff and trade, and everything in between really amazing conversation. Thank you to Secretary Rollins for allowing me here today.

1:13I hope you'll enjoy the conversation. I'm doing all of you. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion. People won the areas. I can hear and talk for hours. Absolutely. We cross your questions. We are giving people ground truth data to under a neuronic. What you gonna say? That was fun. I'm doing all the year. Congrats on your first 100 days. For 100 days yesterday was the 100th day of President Trump. I'm 70 days. Right. But I'm President Trump yesterday, but today we celebrated together at the Cabinet meeting. And we're about to go back over to the White House right after we finished to do more celebrating.

1:48Great. Well, we appreciate it. The USDA is an incredible agency. It was founded under Abraham Lincoln. I think I believe was established under Lincoln. When I think I was talking to your staff, I think 60 % of American workforce within agriculture at the time. That's right. And it's a really critical agency for American prosperity. It has been really important for food security and for the interests of America around the world. It's a trade partner, the largest Ag exporter in the world. The agency is incredible in terms of a scale. 29 sub agencies, over 100 ,000 employees, 40 ,500 locations and an over $200 billion annual budget.

2:26So really an incredible department to oversee. But before we get into the USDA and talk a little bit about some of the work you're doing and have been doing, maybe we can talk a little bit about your background. Did you grow up on a farm? How did you get into agriculture? So yes, I grew up in a really small town in Texas. We were not farmers or ranchers per se in Texas. I grew up on a small farm. We raised animals, we bailed hay, but my family, my mom's side of the family, my grandmother, they had a big row crop farm in Minnesota. So I spent every summer on that farm corn, wheat, soy, pretty much everything you could consider and think of.

3:06So that was my row crop, which has actually been very, very helpful because coming from Texas and being more of a cattle razor and being in cattlemore, which is what I'm in in Texas, it's really great to have sort of both sides of the house and and I'm very appreciative to that. But yes, grew up in a very small town. We didn't have much. I was raised by a single mom, but we did have the land. And on that land, we raised our animals. Again, we built our hay. I barrel raised every Friday night. I grew up in 4 -H and FFA went to Texas A &M on an agriculture scholarship, studied soil science and meats and and feeds and feeding and really dove way into agriculture.

3:43After knowing I would go to law school, I really had a heart for understanding policy and the people, but thought I would really stay in ag for the rest of my life. Obviously, sometimes the path diverts and changes, but even over the 20 years since I last worked 100 % in agriculture, which was for Rick Perry when he was first governor, then quickly moved into all the policy. But I've always stayed very much in touch and involved in AG and always really worked in AG policy, but it's part of a much broader portfolio until this job. But no, listen, the USDA is the People's Department. That was what President Lincoln's vision was.

4:26The American founding had four key agencies, of course, the Attorney General Justice, State and Defense, which was the Department of War at the time, but defense. And that was really the beginning of our country, were those four. Interior was added a couple decades later, and then agriculture. That was sort of the cadence of building a new government and creating some sort of self -governing structure that you want the power to remain with the people. But certainly, as America moved from a frontier republic into, as we know, the world's greatest economic superpower, certainly you needed some kind of governing structure.

5:03And so Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s believes sincerely that the majority of Americans then were rural, they were agriculture related, and that they needed representation here in Washington. So the People's Department was formed, and this building was built in the early 1900s, 1920s, and here we are today. Now through the years, as you mentioned, it has grown and grown and grown. I do believe it became a bit of a catch -all in some ways. you know, we run the food stamp program, the SNAP program, the supplemental nutrition program. We run the forests, of course, the forest services under forestry is under USDA, so that's tens of thousands of firefighters as an example.

5:46And of course, all of the farming and agriculture related from rural development loans to farm loans to crop insurance. And then, and then, of course, moving all of the economic relief, et cetera, that sometimes is often needed. I am I'm still getting my arms around, you know, two months in, exactly everything that we're working on here. But in President Trump's greatest vision and in his bold leadership, one of my top priorities is how we realign the USDA around its original purpose, which was serving the people and especially the farmers and ranchers, so really looking forward to continuing that work.

6:20But you were in the first Trump administration. I was in the first Trump administration. I think I was the only ag major in the building. And now I was doing a lot of different hats. I was working with Jared Kushner in the Office of American Innovation and then was doing all the strategies. So kind of the big picture, you know, for the president and the policy, especially on the domestic side, eventually ran the domestic policy team, eventually towards the end. Took on Kelly and Conway's team and some other portfolios. So really over the course of those three years in Trump one. How did you end up in Trump one?

6:53Well, that is a really crazy long story. I, for my entire policy, my heart is in public policy. I have just, I first thought I may end up at seminary and be a pastor, a youth pastor, and that was really where I was felt very cold after college, but then realized that if I lean into public policy, and I didn't know what that meant, I didn't even know what tank was, but that I could perhaps change more and help more people going that route than if I just worked at a church. And so I really kind of got excited about that idea and I was a big firm litigator for a couple of years after law school, did a courtship, a federal courtship, for a judge in Dallas in the Northern District, and then got a call from Rick Perry, also another big Tom Texas Aggie, Ag Major from an Ag background in rural town, and he just become governor.

7:54And in Texas, George W. Bush had just become president, the whole hanging Chad. You know, I think the election integrity issues are new to today. They are not new to today. This goes way back. But Rick Perry became governor. He was lieutenant governor. And he called me and I was sitting, um, billing my every six minutes, the billble hour for this big law firm in Dallas. Love the firm. Didn't love the work. And he said, why don't you come join my new team down here in Austin. I was 28 years old. I'd only been out of law school for a couple of years. And he made me his deputy general counsel, sort of shocking to everybody.

8:27But I'd known him. I met him when I was 15 as a future farmer of America. He believed in me. And so that was really how the pivot, as I was trying to figure out what was next, I really leaned into public policy. And I found in the governor's office, it was a great experience. I only did it for two years, but the very beginning of his administration, Rick Perry's, that you could make such a difference. But what I realized was that there was no one at that moment in Texas governance that was lobbying for freedom and for liberty and for God and for family. That all of those people that would come see me every day wanted something, even in Texas, looking for a specific law or wanting a little bit more taxpayer money.

9:11and I wasn't even 30 yet. So I was sort of nude all of it, but I was put in a pretty highly responsible area. And it was so instructive to me. So anyway, long story short, I ended up planning to sort of step away from any sort of official work. And my husband and I were ready to start a family. And I was gonna do that for 20 years. And then perhaps think about re -entering the workforce force again having no idea what that even meant. But I got a call from Wendy Graham, who was the Senator Phil Graham's wife, chair of this organization I had never heard of, called the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

9:51And only had a couple of employees based in San Antonio. I was the governor's policy director at the time. I went from being deputy general counsel to taking on all the policy for Rick Perry. And she said, would you like to come do this? I have any kids at the time. Well, you know, I could do it for a year or two and I didn't even know what a think tank was, but I did know that based on my experience in Rick Perry's office, I'm not an academic, I'm an ag major from Texas A &M, but that if there were significant efforts to build a policy apparatus, I couldn't have articulated this 20 years ago, but I can now into what my instinct was.

10:26If there were a significant policy apparatus or apparatus, I guess, that were strategic and intentional, and that didn't have clients that weren't paid to advocate for certain things. We only advocated for what was right, that it could change everything in Texas, everything. It's just been the policy director. I had no one telling me what the right thing to do was. I just had the industry in lobby in my ear. And so I thought, yeah, let me go do this Texas public policy thing for a year or two, and that'll be fun. And then I'll really step away once my kids start coming, hopefully. And I looked up 15 years later with four kids, Luke, Jake, Anna, and Lily.

11:09I was doing the flexible work before it was a thing. My board at TPP, I was wonderful. Went from two employees to about 120, became, I believe, the most effective public policy organization in the country. Move Texas because I had been in the sausage making. So I knew, wasn't, again, one in academic, which at the time most think tanks will run by. But I understood innately how to stop bad things and how to move good things. And that was really the bottom line and out of hire really, really good people. So I got a call from Jared Kushner, whom I had never met. I had been on the president candidate Donald Trump's economic team.

11:46I got a call when he was running its Hillary Clinton. Would you help us just build out our economic tax plan, deregulation plan, et cetera? And I said, of course, but I run a nonpartisan thing tank. And I'm always happy to help because obviously I think we thought Donald Trump was going to be more conservative than Hillary, but no one really knew riding been a Democrat. Very early, not very long ago. And I said, but yes, if anyone calls in helps, I want them to understand the Texas model, what we did and cutting taxes and deregulating and the job growth had happened. and how it helped poor people the most, going back to my original idea of going to seminary.

12:23And so he won. I was on that economic team. I was not interested in coming to DC or the White House. I told the team that, they said, what would you like to do? You were on the team when a lot of people weren't. And I said, no, no, I'm gonna stay in Texas and help. Then I got a call from my now very good friend, but then at the time didn't know him, Jared Kushner, who said, whatever you're doing, this is about six months into term, year one of term one. What is that thing you all are doing in Texas? Criminal justice reform, deregulation, tax cuts, I mean, whatever, all of the great things you've done, that sort of, can you come just talk to me about how you did it?

13:00And so I flew up to DC and flew up again and flew up again and I started saying, we really need you in the White House. We want you to build something very similar to what you built in Texas. is a relentless super strategic, very intentional policy apparatus that could move things. And I said no, and then I said no again, and then I said no again. And then my family and I finally said yes. And so that's how I ended up in the last one. And that transition into this term, obviously you've kept in touch with the president. Well, it's much bigger and more interesting story than that I think. So the final year of term one, I took it upon myself.

13:41I sort of anointed myself as the person that would ensure that when President Trump won the second term on November 3rd of 2020, that we would be ready, unlike we were not in the first term. And so I spent the year with Larry Cudlow who ran the National Economic Council, Scott Robert O 'Brien who ran National Security Council, and I was domestic policy at that point, and really drove an effort to put together an agenda in the teams that would be ready for that second term. And so when that didn't happen and you know everyone else was discouraged, no one would hire Trump people. It was a very dark time January 6th happened.

14:23And in November of 2020, I realized that what I had been blessed to build in Texas, what the Trump first White House asked me to help do within the West Wing, that that's what I needed to do on the national scale. Never, never thinking for a second. At that moment, the President Trump was going to run again. But the whole idea that we had just had four incredible years, that we had a team of people in the cabinet, Trump won, senior staff, Trump won, that finally not only knew how to talk about conservative issues, but knew how to govern from a free market, America first perspective, and that couldn't be lost.

15:04If we lost that team, if we lost that thinking, if we lost that know -how and know if we'd ever get it back, and the Democrats are really good, the left is really good at government. We, our side, is really good at raising families and building business. And so this happens every time that we're put into government. We have a team of people that have the best intentions, but we lose years because we don't know how to run a bureaucracy, how to deconstruct it, and how to reconstruct it. And so what I always - In the timeframe. Yes, exactly, because that's it. It's the timeframe. So we launched the America First Policy Institute and quietly in early February of 21, publicly in April almost exactly four years ago today in April of 21.

15:50I had nine former Trump cabinet members from Trump won 50 former White House senior staff. Many were volunteers at the beginning. Eventually I could raise enough money to get everyone on payroll. But when the president won in November, AFPI and then our sister C4, we launched America First Works. It was a $90 million operation in just a couple of years. And I think fundamentally transform the landscape. Part of it, part of it, not all. Part of it was getting ready for a second America first term, whether that was Donald Trump or whomever, and part of that was having 300 executive orders drafted, having 196 agency plans ready.

16:25And we did it all very quietly. No, we didn't talk about it in the press. No one really knew what was happening. So that then translated to seven of our team are now on the cabinet. Dozens and dozens and dozens are in the White House. And along with our other partners that in those dark days of early 21, you know, from Stephen Miller, that there are just so many of us that were kind of, you know, in solidarity in those early days, not knowing that we would be back, but if given the opportunity, we would answer the call again. So now you're in the cabinet. You're running the Department of Agriculture.

17:01It's been in 70 -some odd days, 100 days for the president. How have the first 100 days gone? What have been kind of the highlights for you in starting this term out. You never says, are you exhausted? And it's a seven day a week, 20 hours a day. And for me, there are days where I'm tired of, and I think I got here to DC. I was in doing tours all day yesterday with Secretary Kennedy. The day before I was in Ohio, I think that's right, yes. Two days before that, I was in North Dakota. Then I'm back here. It's literally a 5 a .m. to midnight, seven days a week effort. But it's just such a gift. I mean, who gets to do this?

17:39And at an inflection point in our country's history, this is, I feel like this is 1776 all over again. And I think about never ever to compare myself to, you know, the founding fathers. But those guys were farmers and teachers and businessmen before they declared independence from the greatest power the world had ever known. And that was great Britain and the king. And so in many ways, I feel like our cabinet and this president has got's hand in that that's what we're called for as well. So while certainly we're working very hard and the 100 days has been extremely fast paced, I think that's why you see the joy in the work is because we're ready for it.

18:20Some of the secretaries in the cabinet have talked about the need to deconstruct, tear down, rebuild, or in some cases completely dismantle the department that they're overseeing. What's your kind of mandate with agriculture? Is there a reform needed in agriculture like others have declared for their departments? Does it need to be rebuilt from the ground up? Does it need to be refought or does agriculture work well and in the best interest of America? What's your general kind of take and your general mandate on the Department of Acts? Yeah, well, and I think when you say, you know, it's agriculture work well.

18:56I think you mean USDA. So the fact that we have an agency with a hundred plus thousand employees the largest budget item is food stamps that the SNAP program there are so many different divisions and contract. I mean we are just getting started. We've already canceled almost six billion dollars a hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollars at a time. That's a significant amount of contracts that we're canceling. We are reducing enforcing and force to make sure that we are as efficient as effective and as flexible as possible. There is no doubt that USDA absolutely needs a realignment, a reconstruction, and a significant reorganization.

19:36So, that's what we are working through right now. The idea that USDA should be, you know, we've got other programs and those are important like food stamps, although they need significant reform. But this agency should be about farmers and ranchers all day, every day, and our ag producers. And how do we talking about the industry now and industry that every year we lose more family farms? Every year, things get outsourced to other countries, including China and Brazil. Every year, it gets harder and harder for most of our farmers to make a living where they can support their family, pass their fourth, fifth, and sixth generation farmer range onto the next, their sons or daughters, it's getting harder and harder.

20:21It's also getting harder and harder for new Americans, men or women to get into the business of farming. It's almost impossible. There's not enough opportunity for capital to inject, to buy a new tractor, to buy the land, to figure out how to become part of this great historical legacy profession in American history. So we've got a lot of things A here at the department, we need to really, really be refocused on and we are. But also there's some massive policy questions that we've got to think through. And then the kind of the final big priority is these farmers don't want all these checks. I mean, they take them.

20:59It's the way they stay in the black and the way they keep farming. It's a national security issue because we lose more farms. We buy more food from overseas. That's not good for the country for a lot of reasons. but at the same time, they would like to be able to sell their product at a profit and not have to worry about the government at the end of the day. So these are all big policy questions that hopefully we expand markets, the president's realigning the entire world economy right now, putting America first. All of those things combined, I believe, will lead us into a new era of prosperity where we can hopefully solve for most of them.

21:32I think they're all really good targets, obviously tactically challenging, but can we start with snap real quick, I just want, because it's 70 % of your budget. It is. $123 billion a year. So just to create some context, 13 % of Americans are on the food stamp, the snap program, at $123 billion a year, that's roughly, call it, 2 % of America's federal budget is going towards the food stamp program. And one key kind of policy point that's come up lately is that roughly 10 % or 15 billion dollars a year is spent on soda and 75 % of the population on snap are clinically obese. Yes. And there's a real health concern about the snap program continuing to fuel our health crisis in America.

22:24What have you and in partnership with Senator, sorry, with Secretary Kennedy talked about with regards to addressing the health challenges that arise from the way the snap program operates today? Yeah, that's been a pretty big priority of ours. And within the first hour of being sworn in on February 13th, 50 letters went out to all 50 governors in the country. And in those letters, we talked about SNAP and innovation and send me your waivers because the way the program works, it moves through the states. And so, and I love that anyway. Like, why would the federal government be telling everyone what to do?

22:58We want in the founders best vision of the 10th Amendment to allow the states to build those programs. But within that was why are taxpayer dollars, why are taxpayer dollars billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on sugary drinks and junk food to go into our supplemental nutrition program for our food, food and secure populations, you know, our lower income populations. When, to your point, the backside is an obesity and chronic disease epidemic unlike any developed country in the history of the world has ever seen. 74 % of our adolescents, our teenagers, would not pass the military readiness test of our United States military right now today.

23:4775%. So again, talk about national security, talk about all of the things. This is a massive, massive challenge facing America. And in the first administration, and health care was under my portfolio and domestic policy, as conservatives, we've long talked about how do we make America healthy again, but very much from a numbers perspective, right? The cost to the health care system at the back end of this. It's not just the taxpayers funding it at the front end with the junk food and the sugary drinks and the diabetes. I mean, just it's really stunning what's happened just in the last couple of decades.

24:24but then on the back and the cost to our healthcare system and treating those chronic diseases, it's going to bankrupt our country. It's almost bankrupting all the state right now through Medicaid. So how do we solve for that and you know, inner bobby Kennedy? And bobby and I don't agree on everything, but we do agree on most things. And the opportunity, I was just with him yesterday, touring some farms and talking about nutrition and agriculture all day, the opportunity for the agriculture, lead, and the health lead to work daily hand in hand to solve this together. You can't solve this through government regulation.

25:01You just can't, but you solve it through nutrition, through empowering your farmers, through getting good food into these programs versus the ultra processed, et cetera. So we've already used these points. And he couldn't be more right. And listen, it's a, again, talk about realigning the world economy with the president's vision of tariffs. It's also realigning how we look at food, how we as a federal government to your point on SNAP and other food programs. We have 13 nutrition programs. Listen to this number. This is going to astound you. In America today, through USDA, this is not all the other agencies.

25:37This is just here at USDA. We spend $370 million a day on nutrition programs. So not just SNAP, but food banks and all of the other ones. That's just USDA. That is a stunning number. We've got to do better. And so that's a big part of it. So Secretary Kennedy and I are on this. We are so aligned. We've got the dietary guidelines. What come from doing right now? What shows up in DC as you guys try and make this move? Because there's a lot of money to, that's just to paint the picture, about a quarter of a percent of federal spending is going towards buying soda. Yeah. Okay. So I'm assuming that there's some interests that show up that are like we don't want that to go away.