Affording Food: Agriculture Sec. Rollins & Chef Lidia Bastianich 11/24/25

0:00Bring in show music please. This is Squawk Pod and I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. Today's episode, affordability on the table, the Thanksgiving table. First, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on America's role in the global soybean trade. And when the Trump administration will deliver aid to American farmers. We are looking at the aid right now. We have always said it is to solve for, to mitigate anything under these new trade negotiations. Every day that changes, and that's what we're working. So we'll have an announcement probably in the next week or two. Then chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author Lydia Bastianich.

0:45Thanksgiving may cost less this year compared to last year, but still Americans are feeling pinched. Bastianich cooks up cost-conscious nourishment by getting back to basics. Biseasonry, number one, and use a lot of the kind of legumes, the dry things, you know, things that I remember my grandmother cooking, you know. Those conversations plus peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, New York City's mayor-elect Momdani in the Oval Office and Marjorie Taylor Greene is resigning. Wacky is a good word for, it's a weird populist wing of the Republican Party. It's Monday, November 24th. This show is like having breakfast just over, it's like Thanksgiving dinner over breakfast.

1:31It just happens to be Thanksgiving week. And Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one, cue it please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Good morning. It's Monday. Got a lot going on. Sort of. Let's talk about some of the big geopolitical news. U.S. and Ukraine officials saying they made some pretty good progress yesterday in talks for a peace plan backed by President Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that the American and Ukrainian teams were working through that peace plan point by point and making adjustments.

2:09He said that an agreement could be reached in a reasonable amount of time, but noted they would have to reach a deal that the Russians would agree to. A U.S. official telling the New York Times on Saturday that plans for separate talks between U.S. and Russia are underway. So we're going to keep our eyes on that and take a look at European defense stocks because they're under some pressure this morning. The stocks, Europe, Aerospace and Defense Index dropping more than 1 percent after falling more than 3 percent on Friday. Meantime, President Trump meeting with mayor of New York City or the mayor elect of New York City, I should say, Zoran Mamdami at the White House on Friday.

2:45I think we all saw it, watched it, a meeting that was expected to be quite contentious. It ended up being more than cordial. President Trump made it clear that he was impressed by Mondani's victory. Mondani pointing out both he and Trump have been focused on the high cost of living. Here's President Trump's take on the meeting. I just want to congratulate. I think you're going to have hopefully a really great mayor. The better he does, the happier I am, I will say. There's no difference in party. There's no difference in anything. And we're going to be helping him to make everybody's dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.

3:21But then interestingly, yesterday and actually in the Oval Office as well on Meet the Press, Mamdami said he still believes the president is a fascist. But he said this about the meeting with Trump. I thought again and again about what it would mean for New Yorkers if we could establish a productive relationship that would focus on the issues that those New Yorkers stay up late at night thinking about. because so often in our politics we try and tell people what they should be worried about, what they should be concerned about. But when you actually ask New Yorkers and you listen to them, you hear it come back to the issues that animated not just the conversation the president and I had with the press after our meeting, but frankly in the meeting itself.

3:56Okay, guys, so what do you think? Was this game meets game? What's the analysis here in terms of the cordial nature? Or is this just a temporary blip until it's not? Probably. I don't know. You see how things go. I mean, just take Elon Musk and the way that goes with Trump. Would it surprise you if things got really nasty? This next story, Marjorie Taylor Greene, I mean, and the relationship with Trump. Marjorie Trader Greene, and then he says she's great. I hope she comes back into politics. Trump does love a winner, and I think he also is impressed by political skills, which is this guy obviously has.

4:42But I don't know. What's Mondani? What does he think of Trump? He called him a fascist again. I think he thinks he's a nice fascist. A nice fascist. A fascist, you know, it is a... Nice fascist and despot. It's a topsy-turvy political world right now, which leads in to what I was going to say with this next story. In a blow to the Democratic Party, Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene, announced on Friday that she will resign from Congress on January 5th. Everyone's favorite Democrat for the last six weeks. So crazy. In a video posted online, Green explained her decision and said she didn't want her congressional district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary.

5:24She was, I don't know whether the writing was on the wall for her or what, but saying a hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for, not sure her poll numbers were great great and whether she would have been able to win again or not. President Trump has branded her a traitor and wacky, which isn't much of a stretch, I don't think. And he said he would, the wacky part, he wouldn't, aren't we all though, would endorse a challenger against her when she ran for re-election next year. Speaking to NBC News yesterday, President Trump was asked if he, if Green has a future in Republican politics.

5:58He said, it's not going to be easy for her, but I'd love to see that. He then said she's got to take a little rest, a little rest and rehab. And there's already an op-ed piece in the journal that J.D. Vance ignore MTG at your own peril for 2028, which to me, when I when I even heard it, even, you know, even floated. There's just in what world is that going to be a viable possibility? And the journal goes on to talk about some of the other parts of the Republican Party that she sort of epitomizes. And none of them are good. Corporations are nefarious, must be politically controlled. Advocates for more defense spending are war profiteers.

6:45Donors due to GOP who don't donate to her aren't real Americans. I mean, wacky is a good word. It's a weird populist wing of the Republican Party. A huge defender of the president, defended him, thought the election was stolen from him last time in a while. She thinks she represents MAGA. She thinks she represents the MAGA. If she represents the MAGA part of them, you know, some distance from some of the crazy notions I think is good. I'm sorry, Andrew. I know that lately you've been, you said her, those three words. No, I'm just laughing because from up until five weeks ago, you never called her wacky.

7:25You thought this was all good. That is total crap. That's total crap, Andrew. That's total crap. When you say you to me, do you mean some composite of some right-wing MAGA person? Marjorie Taylor Greene was never – I would have never said anything about her that, wow, she's a great representative of the Republican Party. That's total crap. I mean, unlike you, who Mondani is your perfect Democrat, which is you've always said because you agree with all of his policies. That's the same type of ludicrous comment that you just made to me. Marjorie, who else is my favorite Republican? Steve Bannon? There was a time.

8:08No, there was never a time. I met the guy before Trump was even elected. that he was, what was his latest thing he said? He will be president in 2028. Trump will be, he says the most incendiary things just for publicity. You know who I like? I like Thune, I like Johnson. We're meeting in the middle then. I like Mike Johnson, I like, you know, I have a whole list that I can give you that doesn't include, who's the other flamethrower besides MTG? Boebert, wacky Lauren Boebert. You know, have you ever seen me start talking about Candace Owens or who's the crazy guy, Fuentes, whatever his name is?

8:51It is a crazy party right now. But I'm going to start doing that to you. If you start saying MTG is my girl, I'm going to start talking to you about Donnie. Who else? Because you have been for the last 15 years. All right. I just had to get that. Do not tie me to old Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't know what's going to happen. I doubt if she's going to be president. That's all I'll say. Take back everything else I said. Is she a MAGA stalwart? I mean, are there... Well, I don't know. President Trump says he's the only one, that he is MAGA, and that he knows what that party is. J.D. Vance, Ike.

9:29Even though I think J.D. Vance gets a little bit taken in by some of the, you know, the Orrin-Cast populist, anti-corporate wing of the party. if I if it was a perfect world I'd clone Ronald Reagan um Andrew you understand that maybe you'd clone Bill Clinton no he's still alive sorry yes but um you know we are in a strange political environment right now and I don't know how I don't know what the end result of parties are both very broad the parts moment shall we say they're broad but you know the the fringe elements of the Republican Party are fringy. And then, you know, yeah. And then we got the Democratic Party and, you know, Becky's friend, Hakeem.

10:13You know who we're going to have on this week? Leader Jeffries. I shouldn't just call him by first. Well, actually, I haven't booked it yet. So let's see. But what we should probably talk about in the meantime is what's happening. Who? No, I'm I'm looking to try and bring together some of the people who are still trying to work on a bipartisan basis because if you're actually going to get anything done with health care there is a group of bipartisan you think you can get or working either one of them on either one of both of them are there two there's a there's a handful of people who are trying to work in the middle uh susan collins is one senator who's been doing some of these things but we're going to try and look at some of those solutions too because we are facing up against the deadline for what's going to happen with the ACA tax credits, it is going to mean higher health care costs for a lot of Americans.

11:05And there are big questions about how you fix that, how you bring down the rate of inflation in health care that has just been out of control for decades at this point. We'll continue. Andrew, you're right. I am going to lay off the collective you when I say you about certain things, when I pigeonhole you and label you in that area. And then you won't do it to me, all right? because we're both our own people. Deal? Is that a deal? If you don't tell me I'm like an MTG acolyte, and I won't say you're up. I always say this show is like having breakfast. Kindergarten? It's like Thanksgiving dinner over breakfast.

11:41It just happens to be Thanksgiving week. So I'm with you. Do not call me the crazy, drunk old uncle, or I'll call you the hippie, you know, goatee-wearing, you know, meathead. Well, just getting everybody ready for their family gatherings this week. In the meantime, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson saying that the Trump administration is working on bringing down health care costs, that topic we were just talking about, and do expect an announcement this week. We had a very big October for home sales. Energy prices, gasoline is down. We saw, we believe health care is going to come down. We will see an announcement this coming week on that.

12:21And so across the board, prices are starting to come down. He made that comment yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press. President Trump has said that he hopes to secure a plan by January 30th to address the coming surge in health care premiums caused by subsidies that expire at the end of this year. And yes, it is going to be a campaign issue for 2026. Cheese will be next. Next on Squawk Pod, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Aid for farmers, the soybean trade, and rising baseline costs of food, labor, and fuel across the country. Americans, we believe, will see real relief very, very soon. Those numbers are already down, but much more to come.

13:06An optimistic take from the Trump administration right after this.

13:13Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC. with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Here's Joe. An executive order signed by President Trump, removing tariffs on Brazilian coffee and beef is expected to ease food costs for Americans. Joining us now, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. You came to New York. I did. Great to be here. You're on set. It's nice to have you here. Yeah, thank you. Affordability. I saw Secretary Besson, I kind of liked it. We hope to see him soon, too. But he said he was asked about some specific item being up, I don't know, 8 % or something like that. And I think he said, do you know, he asked Kristen Walker, how much is your arm weight?

13:58I saw that too. He said, excuse me? He said, how much does your arm weigh? When you measure your weight, do you measure your arm or do you look at the entire, how much weight? The entire basket. We are there are certain things we can control, mainly energy, and that might flow through setting up 2026 to be much more affordable. Is that is that the way to view it? That's it. And first of all, it's so fun to be with you all and not in a black box. Right. Looking into a camera lens. So thanks for having me. Yeah. This administration has been incredibly focused on getting the American dream back into every American's home and goals, et cetera.

14:37And affordability is a huge piece of that. Of course, I'm the agriculture secretary. So food, food production, supporting our farmers and ranchers is a big piece. And when you look at under Joe Biden the last four years, we had an increase in inputs, interest rates, 73 percent, fertilizer, 36 percent, labor increased 47 percent. Not surprising that the driver and of course, no new trade deals during those four years, no way to move the food out. So when you look at all of that in total, it's no surprise that what we inherited was an absolute economic mess. But those numbers are coming down. There are a few outliers.

15:14And you mentioned Secretary Besant talked about a couple of those yesterday. We're working on those extremely diligently. But as we're restructuring the entire economy, as we're bringing down inflation, bringing down fuel, bringing down labor, Americans, we believe, will see real relief very, very soon. Those numbers are already down, but much more to come. The original rationale behind the tariffs on Brazil, which I guess are coming up, what was the thinking there? What's the thinking now? Do we not – it would be nice if we made everything here, but we can't possibly produce everything in the United States.

15:51Was that the wrong move? Now all of a sudden we need these things. Prices are up, so the tariffs come off. Was it ill-conceived, the original tariffs? Listen, the president, who I have, I was his domestic policy chief in the first administration, built the America First Policy Institute in the interim. I mean, I have been next to him on policy for a really long time now. His vision of realigning the entire world economy around putting American products first and America first, but also using tariffs as a really important economic tool to make sure that we are doing everything we can for our country and to keep our country at the top of the world.

16:28So when it comes to Brazil, for example, there was a whole background on that. And this is more probably Marco, Secretary Rubio's lane than mine. But what the president did was using these as economic tools, but also important foreign policy tools as well. Now, what happened with Brazil with those tariffs coming off is this. We're now just back to where we were in February when Liberation Day was announced, meaning that, for example, on a lot of goods, including beef and others, We're back to the 25 percent tariff that is congressionally authorized. So when they say we're taking the tariffs off of Brazil, all we're doing is going back to what was there originally, which was 25 percent.

17:08So the president continues, I believe, to move America forward in such a remarkable way. All of these achievements over the last just 10 months, that's kind of amazing. Some days it feels like 10 years, but we've really only been 10 months and there's so much good left to do. The farmers might get helped eventually. That hasn't happened yet, right? $15 billion in the works. Okay, so we do tariffs on one hand. That's to try to accomplish one thing, but that hurts. That has unintended consequences maybe with farmers. So we're using this$15 billion. Was it a good idea? Was it positive in the end?

17:45I guess you can use some of the tariff proceeds maybe for the$15 billion for the farmers. So a couple of quick points on that. First of all, what the president did with Liberation Day, with enacting all these tariffs back in February, we now have dozens of new trade deals. And within Indonesia, Australia, Japan, EU, England, it's just remarkable. And a lot of these deals, people tried for 20, 25 years to get these deals. Again, under the last administration, we didn't have one new trade deal. We went from a agriculture trade surplus under Trump one to a deficit, 50 billion dollar deficit in just agriculture.

18:24So think about the effects on our farmers and our ranchers. Fifty billion dollars is a significant amount when you're growing corn or soybeans or apples or whatever you're growing. So being able to solve for that, which now we're doing again, it's incredible. But to your point about the aid, the president always said he would take care of the farmers. They have been with him since he came down the escalator just a few blocks from here in 2015 and began this next chapter. So, yes, we are looking at the aid right now. We have always said it is to solve for, to mitigate anything under these new trade negotiations.

18:59Every day that changes, and that's what we're working. So we'll have an announcement probably in the next week or two on what that's going to look like. We're selling a lot more soybeans than we were, though, a couple months ago when we first started talking about that. China went from the biggest buyer of soybeans to zero purchases of soybeans. That was the biggest issue that happened. That happened on President Trump's watch. Well, so we have seen a decline from China buying soybeans for years. It is an important point, though, because China just a few years ago was buying about 65 percent of our soybeans from America.

19:31They have pivoted to buying a lot of Brazilian soybeans. And also the president has said, as has Secretary Besant, that using our soybean farmers for leverage is not OK. So in the last just a couple of weeks ago, the announcement was that China is back on to buy soybeans, 12 million metric tons this year, 25 million metric tons. Over the next few years, they've already put in a purchase order. We've already started shipping soybeans their way, almost a million and a half metric tons. We have every indication they will continue to buy soybeans, sorghum, et cetera. But it goes to the larger effort of President Trump.

20:05We can't be so reliant as Americans producing American products on one country, a foreign adversary. So opening up, Japan's going to buy more soybeans. The EU's going to buy more soybeans. There are countries all around the world now that have committed to that, Argentina and others. So next year, I think you're beginning to see an incredible move toward these opening markets and moving more of our American agriculture products out. Soybeans are at their highest number. they've been in about 15 months. Other parts of our row crops are not seeing that as much, but we're working on that too. But just solving for relying on just one country to buy more than a majority, we just can't do that anymore.

20:46Andrew's got a question too. Hi, Andrew. Hey, Secretary. Hey, how are you? Help me understand this. And tell me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that you said in the White House, it said that China was going to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the United States by January. We're now just about a month and a half away from that. They have, according to the USDA report, only made two big purchases and they total, in total, 332 ,000 metric tons. How is that pledge, if that is a real pledge, and China has not confirmed that pledge, going to be made in that quick a time? Andrew, thank you.

21:28We're actually about a million and a half metric tons, but your point is still salient, right, that a million and a half of 12 million, we've got a significant way to go. I know they are inking the deal this week or next week. Again, every sign is their commitment remains true that they will indeed buy or purchase 12 million metric tons or put the order in. It doesn't mean we'll move 12 million metric tons by the end of December, But it means that those orders will come in according to their commitment and their promise to our president and to Secretary Besson and to Ambassador Greer. So, again, we have every indication that those will continue to move, even if the purchase order comes in before the end of December.

22:07Those will move early next year. Madam Secretary, the affordable affordability, everyone's talking about it now. And I'm not sure everyone understands that when you say the president says prices are coming down. What he really means is we're trying to get inflation down because prices rarely actually fall. Some could in individual areas, obviously eggs or something like that when they're up because of bird flu. But the overall inflation rate is usually positive. So all of those very difficult numbers we saw in the last administration of 9 percent, one year, I think 5 % average inflation over the four year period.

22:49Those are still in the marketplace now for consumers, which is why I think they're feeling it. How can you just agriculture is not, you can't control everything there. Some of those are one offs. A lot of it is housing or remnants of all the spending that was done post COVID by both the Trump and Biden administration. There's too many dollars chasing too few goods. Do you see the administration getting down to 2 % with inflation or the Fed, whoever you give it credit to? Well, I really appreciate the question. The structure of what's happening is incredibly positive. Inflation, the latest numbers were down to 2.9%.

23:29To your point, after having been at a high of 9%, average of 5 % in Joe Biden, we're already down to 2.9%. That was about where it was when Biden left, though. Well, that's right. But it's continuing to come down. We've seen food prices come down. The average Thanksgiving meal is down about five percent. Now, turkey's down 17 percent. Dinner rolls are down 22 percent. So we have some really good numbers there. You see the job numbers at an incredible two and two and a half million American born citizens now are employed that weren't under Biden. The mortgage rates are now down about two hundred dollars on average per month and making a lot of progress on housing, which is about 40 % of the average Americans spend out of pocket every year.

24:11But a lot of it's flat. Those numbers are very positive. You have to look forward to think it's going to be 2 ,000. I think Secretary Besant is saying that it's set up for lower, because I think 2.9 might actually have ticked, or 3 % has ticked up a little from when the president took over. So that's where people, I think, are still feeling the pinch of higher prices, although wages at least are going out. Real wages did not rise during the Biden administration. Wages are rising at their fastest rate in 60 years over the last 10 months. I mean, these are remarkable numbers. But here's the thing, and I think Secretary Bessett said this too, we're not going to tell the American people how to feel.

24:48We're not going to be the Biden administration where you say, oh, but actually you feel good. And they say, no, we're spending more on milk and eggs than we ever have, and our mortgage rates have gone up. This is not what we're doing. Instead, we are putting the fundamentals in place to get back to a thriving growth in the economy. We had a 4.2 percent GDP number recently. The structure is there. We'll continue to work on it, continue to bring costs down, continue to deregulate. Listen, all of the great policy and the one big, beautiful bill, the tax cuts, the deregulation, the shrinking of the government programs, that hasn't even gone into effect yet.

25:23So all of these positive indicators are even without having that bill going into effect, which is going to be extremely positive for the American people. And core inflation doesn't include, you know, food and energy. That's right. That's right. It's all you can do is food, right? That's you know, I'll say that. But I will also say this cabinet is so different. We all work hand in glove. I am in constant communication seven days a week with everyone from Bobby Kennedy to Scott Besson to Laurie Chavez on labor to Kelly Loeffler on small business. It's pretty amazing, this team of people that the president has assembled.