Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

The interview, recorded at the US Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, is introduced as a conversation with the thirty-third secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins. The host lists the planned topics: her background, the department's work, the impact of DOGE, food stamps, the mood of American farmers, tariffs and trade. The exchange opens informally with a request to be called "Brooke" and a remark that she had just come from a cabinet meeting.

Before the introduction, a short preview previews themes the interview returns to: that the United States is the world's largest agricultural exporter, that farmers do not want ongoing government payments, that a large sum of food-stamp money goes to soda, and the claim that 300 executive orders were drafted quietly before the current term began.

Food security is national security.

We're not here for the people to serve us like some monarchy. We're here to serve the people.

The discussion places the interview at the hundred-day mark of President Trump's term. The speaker answering says they personally had marked seventy days in office and that the cabinet celebrated the milestone together that day.

The host describes the department's scale: it was established under Abraham Lincoln, at a time when about 60% of the American workforce was said to be in agriculture, and today it has 29 sub-agencies, more than 100,000 employees, 4,500 locations and an annual budget of over $200 billion. The host also calls it the world's largest agricultural exporter and important to food security and to America's role as a trade partner.

The answer gives a short institutional history. The founding government had four main departments: the Attorney General (Justice), State, and Defense, then called the Department of War. Interior was added a few decades later, then Agriculture. The argument is that Lincoln, in the 1860s, believed a mostly rural, agricultural population needed representation in Washington, which is why the USDA was called "the people's department." The building is dated to the early 1900s, with the 1920s also mentioned.

The speaker argues the department grew into "a bit of a catchall." It now runs the SNAP food-stamp program and the Forest Service, which includes tens of thousands of firefighters, along with farm programs ranging from rural development loans and farm loans to crop insurance and economic relief. The speaker says that two months in they are still "getting my arms around" all of it. The stated top priority is to realign the department around its original purpose of serving the people, especially farmers and ranchers.

In response to the host's question about growing up on a farm, the speaker describes a very small Texas town and a single mother with little money but some land. The family raised animals and baled hay on a small farm, and the speaker barrel raced on Friday nights. Summers were spent on the grandmother's large row-crop farm in Minnesota, growing corn, wheat and soy. The speaker says this experience of both Texas cattle raising and Midwestern row crops has been very useful in the current job.

The speaker's agricultural background includes 4-H and FFA, an agriculture scholarship to Texas A&M, and studies in soil science, meats, feeds and feeding. The speaker always planned to go to law school but expected to stay in agriculture permanently. The speaker says the last time they worked fully in agriculture was about twenty years ago, for Rick Perry when he first became governor, and that ag policy has since been one part of a broader portfolio until this job.