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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Truth with Lisa Booth, where we get

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Speaker 1: to the heart of the issues that matter to you.

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Speaker 1: We're officially one year in to the Trump administration, so

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Speaker 1: I'm thrilled that we've got the United States Secretary of Agriculture.

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Speaker 2: Brooke Rawlins on the show.

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Speaker 1: She's been doing a lot, as everyone has in the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration. They've been moving at a click pace. I

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Speaker 1: often joke that I feel like we're living through dog

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Speaker 1: years right now. But she's been really focused on cutting

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Speaker 1: red tape, lowering food costs for Americans, and putting American

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Speaker 1: agriculture first.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to talk to her about that. Also.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not seeing

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Speaker 1: the staff turnover, the cabinet secretary turnover that we saw

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Speaker 1: during President Trump's first term. I'm going to ask Secretary

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Speaker 1: Rowlins why that is. We'll also talk about the work

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Speaker 1: that she's done to try to drive down some of

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Speaker 1: these stable food prices as much as twenty five percent,

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Speaker 1: some of the challenges that farmers are facing in the

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Speaker 1: country and what she's trying to do about it. We're

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Speaker 1: also going to talk about protecting the country from China

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Speaker 1: buying up farmland. Also, we all know that make America

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Speaker 1: Healthy Again was a big, big issue during the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four presidential campaign for a lot of Americans. What

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Speaker 1: role is she playing in that as Secretary of Agriculture.

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Speaker 1: So stay tuned, we've got a lot to cover, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you don't want to miss this

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Speaker 1: conversation with Secretary Brook Rawlins. Well, Secretary Brook Rowlins, it's

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Speaker 1: such an honor to have you on the podcast.

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Speaker 2: I really appreciate you making the time.

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Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, Well, Lisa, thank you. It's a joy

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Speaker 3: to be on. And it's been an amazing one year.

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Speaker 3: As you and I talked about before we were on

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Speaker 3: the show, it's quite the adventure every day.

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Speaker 4: But it's just such the blessing. So thank you for

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Speaker 4: having me on.

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Speaker 1: Well, I've got to tell you from the media perspective,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure you're feeling this way as a cabinet secretary,

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Speaker 1: that we're living in dog years because you guys are.

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Speaker 2: So busy that I feels y if you take like

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Speaker 2: a couple of days off of work for whatever reason,

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Speaker 2: I feel like I've missed a whole month of news.

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Speaker 4: No, it's so true and It's funny.

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Speaker 3: I remember I was in the first time with President

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Speaker 3: Trump in the West Wing with him on Senior's staff,

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Speaker 3: and I remember even then it seemed so fast and

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Speaker 3: so furious. But I think we've even hit warp speed

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Speaker 3: since term one. I mean, it's it's really incredible. There

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Speaker 3: aren't many I think that can keep up with him,

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Speaker 3: or any that can keep up with him, But our

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Speaker 3: cabinet is just we're so energized, we're so grateful to

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Speaker 3: be serving the country, and it's really been I joke

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Speaker 3: about how crazy it's been, and it has, but it's

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Speaker 3: just so joyful to get.

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Speaker 4: To do this work. At this moment.

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Speaker 1: He does not get tired, because you know, I'm just

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Speaker 1: in your immortal so I don't.

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Speaker 4: It's so funny.

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Speaker 3: I've never I've never really needed much sleep either, and

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Speaker 3: so I can kind of appreciate it.

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Speaker 4: But I tell the story that at one thirty two.

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Speaker 3: Am Central time, I was in Texas, where I live,

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Speaker 3: and so two thirty two am Eastern time, which is

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Speaker 3: where the President was on New Year's Eve, so it's

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Speaker 3: very early New Year's Day.

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Speaker 4: I got a text from him and it said something like, Brooke,

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Speaker 4: great job, what a great year.

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Speaker 3: I so appreciate you, but we've really got to get

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Speaker 3: the price of beef down for all Americans.

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Speaker 4: Your favorite president DJT.

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Speaker 3: So that was the text, and I get a lot

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Speaker 3: of text from him, so you know, but I was

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Speaker 3: just I just laughed. I mean, it was just so

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Speaker 3: great at two thirty am, his time, the beginning of

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Speaker 3: the new year then, but to.

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Speaker 4: Make the eight even better. About five hours later.

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Speaker 3: Probably six thirty or seven thirty AM, my phone rings

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Speaker 3: and it's him and he's like, Okay, I was just

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Speaker 3: calling to follow up on my text from last night.

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Speaker 4: Have we made any progress.

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Speaker 2: It's like it's not even been a day.

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Speaker 3: I say, I'm working so hard, but Noah, I haven't

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Speaker 3: made any progress between one thirty am and six thirty

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Speaker 3: am on New Year's Day.

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Speaker 4: But I am making I promise you that, just not

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Speaker 4: in the last five hours.

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Speaker 1: Well, and before we get to that progress and what

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Speaker 1: you've done at the Department of Agriculture, you know you

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Speaker 1: mentioned you were with them during the first term.

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Speaker 2: Why do you we're not seeing as much turnover.

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Speaker 1: As we saw and I don't think there's been there's

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Speaker 1: been no turnover with the cabinets sextuaries. Why why do

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Speaker 1: you think that there's less turnover during this second term

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Speaker 1: the second time around.

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Speaker 3: You know, we all are so on board with his vision,

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Speaker 3: We all know and love him.

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Speaker 4: Some of us more than others.

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Speaker 3: But still, I think that everyone knew what they were

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Speaker 3: signing up for, which was a four year never sleep,

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Speaker 3: never stop working, never stop hustling, fighting for the country.

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Speaker 4: I think we all understood.

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Speaker 3: The consequences of not being successful for the American people,

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Speaker 3: and I think none of us can what the mainstream

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Speaker 3: media says. None of us care about our next job, like,

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Speaker 3: none of us care. We're literally just here to serve

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Speaker 3: him and to serve the country and serve God. And

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Speaker 3: there's something so freeing about that. Whereas the first term,

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Speaker 3: you know, he'd never even spent the night in Washington before.

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Speaker 3: There was no prep He's very superstitious, so there wasn't

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Speaker 3: really much planning that went into if he won in

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Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, what twenty seventeen would look like. And you know,

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Speaker 3: you combine all that with the fact that we had

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Speaker 3: four years in between one and two, and I built

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Speaker 3: a think tank called the America First Policy Institute to

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Speaker 3: basically prepare so that conservatives could for the first time

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Speaker 3: take what we learned in Trump one and then apply it.

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Speaker 3: Whether it was Donald Trump or someone else that won

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Speaker 3: president on our side, we would be ready for the

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Speaker 3: first time ever. So I think it was a big

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Speaker 3: combination of a lot of factors. But we are family.

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Speaker 3: We literally all love each other. It's been an incredible experience.

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Speaker 2: You know, do you write are not bad recently?

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Speaker 1: That prisis for certain food stables to phone as much

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Speaker 1: as twenty five percent.

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Speaker 2: Walk us through your referts at the.

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Speaker 1: Department of Agriculture and trying to accomplish that goal, and

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Speaker 1: obviously families are still feeling the pinch. But walk us

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Speaker 1: through your role, what you yeah, and and sort of

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Speaker 1: your outlook on how to continue driving those prices down.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think the first point in that is, and

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Speaker 3: we've all sort of heard him say it a lot

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Speaker 3: that his first day on the job, one of his

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Speaker 3: first questions. That means the mainstream media started screaming at

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Speaker 3: him about the price of eggs and how they had increased,

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Speaker 3: you know, two hundred and thirty percent, and he's like,

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Speaker 3: this is I am, this isn't my first day on

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Speaker 3: the job. Everyone I mean really, but he didn't call

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Speaker 3: me that night the night I got sworn in, and

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Speaker 3: he said, we've really got to do something about this.

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Speaker 3: So we a couple of weeks later, put a plan together,

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Speaker 3: released it. It had it was multifaceted that we had

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Speaker 3: an HPAI, which is bird flu, so we had a

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Speaker 3: we had an issue there we had to contain.

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Speaker 4: We did that.

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Speaker 3: We we did a few more imports, although not a

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Speaker 3: whole bunch to help consumer prices come down. We invested

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Speaker 3: a lot of money in bio security and helping especially

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Speaker 3: those well, helping everybody frankly, but about five companies sell

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Speaker 3: about eighty percent of the table eggs in America, so

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Speaker 3: really you could do a lot within that one category

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Speaker 3: to help bring the price down. So we were very

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Speaker 3: surgical about it, and I think that's the difference in

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Speaker 3: what we're doing versus the last administration. You know, they

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Speaker 3: went on a spending spree. Of course, taking money, taxpayer

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Speaker 3: money and building more government means inflation goes up, less

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Speaker 3: money to spend, prices go.

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Speaker 4: Up, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: And so eggs was really our first example out of

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Speaker 3: the box, and within a month or two the price

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Speaker 3: had fallen ten percent. Forty percent, fifty percent, and we're

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Speaker 3: now back down to you know, Trump one numbers a

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Speaker 3: dollar eighty to ten for a dozen eggs, whereas a

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Speaker 3: year ago, right now, at this moment, there were ten

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Speaker 3: dollars a dozen and twelve dollars a dozen in California.

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Speaker 4: Nineteen dollars a dozen.

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Speaker 3: So I think that's the example of what is possible now.

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Speaker 3: Some of it's a lot more difficult than others. The

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Speaker 3: eggs are a little bit simpler because you grow a

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Speaker 3: hen within a couple months, she can lay eggs and

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Speaker 3: you're back off to the races. Beef is different because

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Speaker 3: it takes two years from birth to slaughter, so we're

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Speaker 3: at a seventy five year cattle herd low.

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Speaker 4: It's a supply and demand question. The left really has had.

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Speaker 3: An all out war on our cattle raisers, whether saying

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Speaker 3: their gas creates climate change, shutting down western lands for grazing,

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Speaker 3: the consolidation of masure beef processing plants so that that

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Speaker 3: drives the cost of too. There's so many cost factors

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Speaker 3: on beef, it's going to take us a little bit longer.

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Speaker 3: But everything in between eggs and beef, for the most part,

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Speaker 3: milk cheese, butter, vegetables, fruit, It has all come down.

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Speaker 3: We've brought inflation down, We've brought the cost of inputs down,

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Speaker 3: and it's only going to get lower in the coming

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Speaker 3: year and hopefully beyond.

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Speaker 2: But that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: A lot of what is in your portfolio, some of

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Speaker 1: it just you know, sort of outside of her control.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about tariffs for a minute, because there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of positives in it in terms of bringing

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Speaker 1: in a lot of revenue I think record revenue with

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Speaker 1: the tariffs, and you know, and he also wisely uses

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Speaker 1: tariffs to extract concessions from other countries and to sort of,

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Speaker 1: you know, push them in the direction he wants them

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Speaker 1: to go in. But then there has been a challenge

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Speaker 1: for farmers as well, for you know, cattle farmers and

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Speaker 1: just sweebeans and.

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Speaker 2: Farm you know, just all of it.

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Speaker 1: So how challenging has that been for you to sort

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Speaker 1: of navigate obviously the many benefits of the tariffs, but

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Speaker 1: then also the challenges with the groups that you're you're

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Speaker 1: working with and dealing with.

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Speaker 4: You know, I will tell.

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Speaker 3: You, Lisa, our farm economy is in a really tough

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Speaker 3: spot and we're making progress.

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Speaker 4: Over the last year, but what we inherited.

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Speaker 3: We went from an agricultural trade surplus and trump one.

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Speaker 3: When we got back four years later, it was a

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Speaker 3: fifty billion dollar deficit. Not one new trade deal in

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Speaker 3: four years under Biden. I don't even understand how that's possible,

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Speaker 3: Like what did they do for four years but no

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Speaker 3: new trade deals. At the same time, the cost of

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Speaker 3: inputs on average increase between thirty and forty percent. For example,

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Speaker 3: labor for agriculture increased forty seven percent, interest rates seventy

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Speaker 3: three percent, fuel thirty six percent, seed fertilizer, just go

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Speaker 3: down the list. It's absolutely astonishing. So you combine that

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Speaker 3: increase in the cost of inputs, which were unprecedented and

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Speaker 3: historic in the worst way, with no new trade deals,

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Speaker 3: and in fact, with America taking their eye off the

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Speaker 3: ball those four years, Brazil and other countries stepped in

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Speaker 3: and began to take our market share. And that's what

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Speaker 3: we're trying to scratch back at this point. Clawback is

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Speaker 3: more of that market share to get our producers out

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Speaker 3: out selling again across the world. So then you can

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Speaker 3: bind that with the president's rightful vision as you mentioned

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Speaker 3: on realigning the world economy around tariffs, but anytime, and

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Speaker 3: putting American products first, you know, And as an example,

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Speaker 3: we export other countries on average put a fifteen percent

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Speaker 3: tariff on our goods when their goods come in, ours

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Speaker 3: was an average of five percent. It's unsustainable. And so

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Speaker 3: all of that together created this perfect storm for our

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Speaker 3: farm economy. We knew that it was going to be

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Speaker 3: a tough go. I spent a lot of time in

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Speaker 3: agriculture media and explaining what we were doing so that

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Speaker 3: people weren't shocked. And the credit to our ag community

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Speaker 3: who've stuck with us. The latest polling shows they are

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Speaker 3: more optimistic than ever before on their future, even in

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Speaker 3: some of these more challenging times. Now CNN will go

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Speaker 3: find some farmer you know that probably never voted for us,

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Speaker 3: even if they say they did, who will say.

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Speaker 4: Really mean things.

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Speaker 3: But the average American farmer and rancher has really stuck

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Speaker 3: with us. And as we move into twenty twenty six

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Speaker 3: and twenty twenty five, our corn exports were up twenty

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Speaker 3: nine percent, our dairy exports were up nineteen percent. The

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Speaker 3: plan is working, and I think twenty six you're going

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Speaker 3: to see those numbers really begin to escalate even more.

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Speaker 3: And you also combine that with the deregulatory agenda, You

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Speaker 3: combine that with the tax cuts, you combine that with

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Speaker 3: the largest rural investment in American history under the one big,

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Speaker 3: beautiful bill of about two hundred and fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 3: You're going to see a whole new day, I believe,

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Speaker 3: for rural American for our farmers.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that about the poll about the farmers.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting because you know farmers. You know, it's a

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Speaker 1: tough industry. Rate Like these these farmers, the ones that have

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Speaker 1: had conversations with which you've had many more, but they

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Speaker 1: really know their business like the back of their hands.

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Speaker 1: So I got to take a quick commercial break more

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Speaker 1: with Secretary Rollins on the other side, I think one

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Speaker 1: important thing and part of the America First Agenda is

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Speaker 1: sort of updating the product of USA labeling. How is

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Speaker 1: the Department sort of insuring compliance and enforcement for beef

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Speaker 1: products and sort of what's the early feedback you're hearing

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Speaker 1: from ranchers who pushed for this change.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really important step.

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Speaker 3: And I think that it also Lisa goes to I

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Speaker 3: was a very unusual pick for this position. A lot

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Speaker 3: of people in agriculture were very confused. I was not

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Speaker 3: planning to do this job at the President had a

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Speaker 3: vision and he called me and said, you know, I

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Speaker 3: really want you to do this. And said, well, I'm

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Speaker 3: not you know, I wasn't planning to be in the cabinet.

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Speaker 3: I'm staying home with Mike.

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Speaker 1: Final Hopefully it wasn't at one thirty am or well

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Speaker 1: may close.

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Speaker 4: I'll be honest with you.

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Speaker 3: I think it was at twelve thirty am in my time,

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Speaker 3: but I was looking back.

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Speaker 4: It's been the honor of a lifetime for a lot

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Speaker 4: of reasons.

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Speaker 3: But I do think for this moment in time and

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Speaker 3: that the the incredible challenges are farm economy. Our farmers,

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Speaker 3: especially our independents, have faced the loss of one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty thousand family farms over the last ten or

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Speaker 3: twenty years. This is a national security issue at this point.

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Speaker 3: And so I say all of that as context to

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Speaker 3: my product of the USA is so very very important.

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Speaker 3: There has been such a consolidation, and I'm not here

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Speaker 3: to cast judgment on the prior agriculture secretaries. I obviously

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Speaker 3: love a secretary of Purdue, and he and I have

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Speaker 3: not talked about this. I am I'm going to be

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Speaker 3: careful what I say that. Tom Vilsack the secretary of

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Speaker 3: AAG under eight years under Obama and four years under Biden,

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Speaker 3: so he was there basically twelve of the last sixteen years.

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Speaker 3: There really is a uniparty in Washington that is controlled

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Speaker 3: by the lobbyists and the trade associations.

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Speaker 4: And I don't cast stones.

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Speaker 3: There are good people working in those associations, but they

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Speaker 3: are there to protect the status quo and to protect

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Speaker 3: big business.

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Speaker 2: But that's not me.

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Speaker 3: And I don't go to the cocktail parties. I don't

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Speaker 3: take most of the meetings. I am literally here to

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Speaker 3: fight for the independent producer, for the average family farmer

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Speaker 3: and rancher, and how we can protect that going forward.

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Speaker 3: And so that's why these changes are so important. USDA

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Speaker 3: is doubling down on enforcement. We plan to take it very,

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Speaker 3: very seriously. We've already started sending investigators into the field,

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Speaker 3: and we're putting a lot of money behind this, you know,

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Speaker 3: this ad campaign so that the average American mom and

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Speaker 3: dad are going to the grocery store looked for the

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Speaker 3: product of the USA label.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and you mentioned protecting farmland and you know

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Speaker 1: that's important too with you know, China and keeping China

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Speaker 1: out of our country, and keeping China from purchasing land

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Speaker 1: as well in the country, and you know, protecting us

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Speaker 1: from outside influence as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it's a it is a massive national security issue.

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Speaker 3: China in nineteen eighty three owned about two thousand acres

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Speaker 3: of American farmland. Today it's three hundred thousand, and many

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Speaker 3: of them near our military bases.

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Speaker 4: China is playing the long game.

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Speaker 3: They're playing the long game, and their goal is to

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Speaker 3: knock off our country as a superpower, as the superpower,

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Speaker 3: not a superpower, but the superpower and frankly the beacon

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Speaker 3: for liberty and freedom and light in the world. And

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Speaker 3: it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you

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Speaker 3: start compromising.

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Speaker 4: The food supply, you lose.

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Speaker 3: What freedom really is. And that's how existential. I truly

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Speaker 3: believe this is I totally agree with that.

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Speaker 1: You know, I want to talk about the Make America

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Speaker 1: Healthy Again movement and the role that you're playing at

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Speaker 1: the Department of Agriculture. I know that President Trump recently

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Speaker 1: signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. You know,

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Speaker 1: walk us through, take us through how you see your

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Speaker 1: role in making America healthy again. As the AG secretary, I.

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Speaker 3: Think that we talked about the independent producer, the family farmer,

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Speaker 3: how we've lost so many. I believe that this movement,

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Speaker 3: while obviously so compelling and just such common sense, eat

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Speaker 3: real food, stop the war on saturated fats, driven cold milk,

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Speaker 3: do everything in moderation. But you know this whole You know,

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Speaker 3: when eighty percent of our chronic disease is driven by

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Speaker 3: what people eat, and we see it and it's bankrupting

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Speaker 3: our states.

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Speaker 4: Because of the healthcare on the back end, I think that's.

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Speaker 3: All so important. And as a long time conservative freedom warrior,

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Speaker 3: you know.

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Speaker 4: We've been talking about this for a long time.

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Speaker 3: But what this means also for our farmers and our

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Speaker 3: ranchers putting real food back at the center of the

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Speaker 3: policy making discussion on healthcare. And this won't happen overnight,

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Speaker 3: but Lisa, just think, as we're trying to make school

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Speaker 3: lunches healthier, and as we're trying to make sure snap

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Speaker 3: dollars don't get spent on junk food, the solution to

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Speaker 3: all of that is the American farmer to all of it.

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Speaker 3: And that aperture that I believe is opening in the

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Speaker 3: market for young farmers, first gen farmers to get into

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Speaker 3: this business that want to move back to the land.

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Speaker 3: I mean, for the first time in generations, we have

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Speaker 3: this current youth generation who isn't interested in moving from

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Speaker 3: the small town to the big town.

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Speaker 4: They want to go back to the small town.

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Speaker 3: And this is going to allow us to really, I think,

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Speaker 3: support that movement while also making America healthy again with

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Speaker 3: locally grown, nutrient dense food to get to our kids,

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Speaker 3: to get into our welfare programs, and to get onto

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Speaker 3: every family's plate every morning and every night before we go.

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Speaker 1: You would kind of mentioned the disconnect between you know,

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Speaker 1: if you look at the polling with farmers, they're happy,

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Speaker 1: they're optimistic, you know, obviously not discounting challenges that they're

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Speaker 1: facing that they know they're facing, but they're optimistic. But then,

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Speaker 1: you know, you turn on CNN and they find the

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Speaker 1: farmer who is an happy that has negative things to

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Speaker 1: say about the administration. How do you deal with that

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Speaker 1: disconnect and how challenging is that for the President's cabinet

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Speaker 1: and also for you and the president as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a really that's a it's an

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Speaker 3: extremely for me personally, extremely difficult in many ways to

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Speaker 3: see that immediate knee jerk anti Trump, anti America first,

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Speaker 3: anti agricat I mean the noise that's out there, and

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Speaker 3: I think it doubles and triples down because we are

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Speaker 3: doing so well and we're getting so much done, and

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Speaker 3: you talk about existential threats, the.

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Speaker 4: Democrats are facing one right now.

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Speaker 3: Right They've their policies don't resonate with the majority of

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Speaker 3: Americans anymore. They have lost the narrative, they have lost

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Speaker 3: the policy debate. The four years under Joe Biden, we're

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Speaker 3: an absolute astrophe for the average American and the American worker.

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Speaker 4: And the border being open. I mean, it was just

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Speaker 4: one thing after another.

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Speaker 3: So you see that all these problems have been solved,

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Speaker 3: but you also see how the other side is working

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Speaker 3: to twist what we're doing.

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Speaker 4: A great example, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, I was talking in the O office last week

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Speaker 3: about how eating healthy doesn't have to be expensive. In fact,

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Speaker 3: for the most part, it's cheaper than a lot of

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Speaker 3: fast food meals or a bag of ships and an

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Speaker 3: energy during from a convenience store.

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Speaker 4: But the real question is access.

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Speaker 3: We got to we got to get better food into

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Speaker 3: the convenience stores where they can buy them. But my goodness,

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Speaker 3: the left grabbed onto that, and you know they've just

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Speaker 3: run with it. You know, the Secretary of bag thinks

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Speaker 3: we should all eat for three or four dollars a meal.

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Speaker 3: And you know what fairytale is she living in? And

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Speaker 3: you know, instead of it being about getting healthy food

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Speaker 3: to everyone and making it affordable, because it is, it

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Speaker 3: now becomes about you know how President Trump and his

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Speaker 3: cabinet hate poor people.

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Speaker 4: But I've been at this a really long time. We

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Speaker 4: know better.

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Speaker 3: We know that it is our ideas and our battle

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Speaker 3: that lifts all Americans to the American dream. Gets kids

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Speaker 3: into better schools, gets healthier food on their plates, make

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Speaker 3: their streets safer, makes it so that mom and dad

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Speaker 3: get a better job where real healthcare that puts the

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Speaker 3: patient first is available. And this is why all of

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Speaker 3: this is just so so important and why it will

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Speaker 3: make a difference, and we just have to keep at it.

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Speaker 4: We just can't let us get it, let us get

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Speaker 4: let it get us down.

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Speaker 1: Secretary Brooke Rawlins really enjoyed speaking with you. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: breaking this all down for us.

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Speaker 2: We'd love to have you back on soon.

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Speaker 4: Awesome Lisa, you're the best. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: That was Secretary broke Rawlins.

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Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I really enjoyed that conversation.

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Speaker 2: I really like her a lot. I hope you did too.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and

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Speaker 1: Thursday that you can listen throughout the week. Alsoort of thing,

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Speaker 1: John cast and my producer were putting the show together

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Speaker 1: until next time.