| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
As our thanks, you'll receive an exclusive democracy unfiltered decount. | |
| Your gift helps make C-SPAN possible. | ||
| Visit c-span.org slash donate today and join us in keeping America's story alive. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins spoke to reporters about immigration and its effect on farming during remarks outside the White House. | ||
| Secretary Rollins also highlights market access for U.S. farmers and how it could be considered a national security issue. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| Obviously, this president has been unequivocal in his support of our farmers. | ||
| I don't know that we've ever had a more farmers' first president than President Trump, maybe Abraham Lincoln when he started the USDA. | ||
| But he understands the concerns of our farm workers and our farmers that if they don't have the labor, we can't feed or fuel or provide fiber to the world. | ||
| So he just intuitively, innately understands that. | ||
| But he also has a promise to the American people that he has for 10 years talked about ensuring that every person that is in America is here legally. | ||
| So he has tasked our Secretary of Labor, Laurie Chavez-DeRimmer, who runs the H-2A program, our labor program out of labor, to ensure that we are adjusting that to make sure that that program is affordable, it's efficient, and it's effective. | ||
| Right now, for any of our farmers to use the H-2A program, they've got to go through three different agencies. | ||
| Then the cost of it, under Joe Biden, the cost of the H-2A program increased almost 40%. | ||
| So you have basically a program that many of the farmers can't access. | ||
| They don't have the armies of lawyers to do it. | ||
| So she is making significant changes. | ||
| She's already made a couple of announcements, and I don't know there are more to come. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You just recently announced that USDA is going to purchase about $230 million of local fish produce to distribute around the country when he's in need. | |
| Can you expend on that? | ||
| Yeah, I think that as we continue to focus on how we support and even open up the market to more small family farms, more locally produced produce, the farmers market, the great American farmers markets going on right now. | ||
| We're in day three, biggest farmers market, I think, in the history of America. | ||
| We're so proud of it, celebrating America at 250. | ||
| But part of that is the effort to ensure that yesterday Make America Healthy Again Day with Bobby Kennedy, but to ensure that we're able to provide healthy, in many respects, locally grown produce and products. | ||
| So that particular program, Brian, the couple hundred million we just announced as part of a larger billion-dollar project to not only use this opportunity to move forward more locally produced, supporting more of our smaller farmers, creating more opportunity and market access for those farmers. | ||
| But really, this is from my perspective, I've been saying this, this is almost a national security issue. | ||
| We've got to figure out how to feed and fuel and clothe ourselves and not be reliant on foreign adversaries especially, but even foreign other foreign governments. | ||
| This is a piece of that. | ||
| Very soon, we'll be announcing, I think, a really exciting program. | ||
| USDA spends $405 million every single day. | ||
| Just even taking a moment in Washington, we all sort of think about all these big numbers, we get a little bit numb to them. | ||
| But when you think that USDA, not across the government, but USDA alone, spends $405 million a day on nutrition programs, food stamps, et cetera, that number is stunning. | ||
| So what can we do, A, to reform the program, which I know we've all talked about we're doing, but B, to begin to shift some of that money into buying more locally sourced, healthy food, which again supports the smaller farmers. | ||
| So I'm really excited about that. | ||
| We're building the plan right now. | ||
| Only 5% of food that is purchased in bulk for schools, for prisons, et cetera, only 5% of it is locally sourced. | ||
| So there's a huge opportunity there and more to come on that. | ||
| We'll do one more question, y'all. | ||
| Anybody else? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you guys so much. | ||
| Look at y'all. | ||
| That's great. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Bye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington to across the country. | ||
| Coming up Wednesday morning, League of Conservation Voters President Pete Maismith on the Trump administration's EPA rollbacks, including the recent repeal of a landmark scientific finding and legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases. | ||
| Then, Brigham McCown of the Hudson Institute discusses the Trump administration's energy agenda and recent rollbacks of federal climate efforts. | ||
| We'll also talk about the Voting Rights Act and the impact it's had since being signed into law 60 years ago with Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Atiba Ellis and Spectrum news reporter Rina Diamante on the latest on the fight over efforts to change Texas's congressional map. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Wednesday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| And past president nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo quarter. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Political Playbook Chief Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. |