Milk Is Racist Now?! Why Trump Is Pushing Whole Milk In Schools | ft. USDA Sec Brooke Rollins

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Isabel Brown Show
Episode: Milk Is Racist Now?! Why Trump Is Pushing Whole Milk In Schools | ft. USDA Sec Brooke Rollins
Date: January 19, 2026
Host: Isabel Brown
Guest: USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins
Publisher: The Daily Wire

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Episode Overview

This episode confronts recent social media controversies accusing the Trump administration’s “whole milk in schools” campaign of being a so-called white supremacist “dog whistle.” Isabel Brown, with guest Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, breaks down the viral claims, walks listeners through the historic and political context, and discusses the federal policy and nutritional reasoning behind reintroducing whole milk to schools. The conversation highlights how food policy intersects with culture wars, health, personal freedom, and American agriculture.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Social Media Panic: “Milk Is Racist”?

• Host Isabel Brown opens by mocking the headlines and social media posts that claim drinking whole milk is now associated with white supremacy due to a new Trump administration policy ([00:28]–[05:32]).

• Viral posts claim the government’s promotion of whole milk is a dog whistle for white nationalists, drawing on dubious historical references and genetic arguments about lactose tolerance.

  “Drinking milk makes you an unabashed white supremacist and basically Adolf Hitler, apparently.” – Isabel Brown ([00:28])

• Isabel dissects posts and videos circulating on Twitter and TikTok, noting the startling uniformity of these narratives and speculating about organized efforts behind them.

2. The Dog Whistle Accusation Explained

• Multiple soundbites from online commentators summarize the core accusations:

  • Milk being used as a “white supremacist symbol” due to higher lactose tolerance in people of Northern European descent ([05:32]–[08:40]).
  • Historical references to dairy being forced onto indigenous populations by colonizers, and old government health campaigns centering milk as an idealized food for white Americans.

  “Milk is not about nutrition, and it never has been. It’s always been about who America decides is the ideal and the correct kind of human.” – Historian/Political Analyst ([14:41])

• Host and guest ridicule these claims, pointing out diversity in the campaign’s public figures and questioning the historical narrative.

3. Isabel’s Personal Reaction

• Isabel shares her incredulity and mild exasperation at the notion that enjoying whole milk might now be coded as racist.

  “Maybe, just maybe, it’s just milk.” – Isabel Brown ([16:13])

• Reflects on her switch back to whole milk for health reasons, calling out additives in plant-based alternatives.

4. Interview with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins ([21:06]–[42:29])

Main Focus:

• The real motivation behind the policy is rooted in nutrition science and reforming dietary guidelines for American schools and federal nutrition programs, not outdated racial ideologies.

Key Segments

a. New Food Pyramid & Dietary Guidelines ([21:06]–[24:25])

• Secretary Rollins: The pyramid is now flipped—protein, healthy fats, and real food (like whole milk) are emphasized, while highly processed foods and simple carbs are deprioritized.
• Policy shift is part of a broader strategy to combat chronic disease, improve child health, and save taxpayer dollars on downstream healthcare costs.

“Eat real food, stop eating junk… this doesn’t seem like rocket science.” – Brooke Rollins ([21:06])

b. Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act ([28:33]–[30:45])

• Rollins explains that the Obama-era ban on whole milk failed to improve child health.
• The new law allows whole milk in schools, based on both nutritional research and the expert input of figures like Dr. Ben Carson.

“Whole milk is one of the most perfect, the most perfect things you can put into your body that God gave us.” – Brooke Rollins ([28:33])

c. America First, Conservative Policy Rationale ([24:25]–[28:03])

• Rollins frames the policy as conservative: it’s not about government coercion but about guiding government spending responsibly and supporting good outcomes with taxpayer dollars.
• Emphasizes personal freedom—people can eat what they want, but public funds shouldn’t subsidize junk food.

“We’re not telling anyone what they have to eat… if the taxpayer is going to fund it, we’re going to be a little bit better in understanding how to effectuate that program.” – Brooke Rollins ([25:26])

d. Agriculture Revival & Opportunities for Young People ([34:25]–[37:18])

• Rollins highlights a resurgence in young people moving into agriculture, aided by USDA programs and increased demand for local, quality food.
• Discusses how administration policies are designed to foster new generations of farmers and reverse urbanization trends.

e. Insights on Government Bureaucracy and Reform ([38:14]–[41:54])

• Rollins describes the scale and challenges of USDA.
• Cites shocking “waste and fraud” in nutrition programs, especially SNAP, and ongoing efforts to solve these.
• Expresses positive experiences working alongside dedicated career civil servants and fellow Cabinet members.

“God has been so good. He has put the best group of people together for this moment in time to save America… and we’re working hard.” – Brooke Rollins ([41:54])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “These people have lost their ever loving minds. Since when is milk the new face of white supremacy?”
  — Isabel Brown ([08:40])

• “Why would they have featured former NFL player Frank Murphy as one of the poster people of the whole milk campaign? ... These people are so desperately grasping at straws.”
  — Isabel Brown ([16:13])

• “The reality is, we're poisoning people long-term with these chronic health epidemics like diabetes and obesity, as you just mentioned. What's your response to that and how is this truly an America first policy lens?”
  — Isabel Brown ([24:25])

• “Whole milk is one of the most perfect, the most perfect things you can put into your body that God gave us… in Exodus, the second book of the Bible talks about the land of milk and honey.”
  — Brooke Rollins ([28:33])

• “This isn’t about funding freedom and telling people what they can or can’t eat… But if the taxpayer is going to fund it, we’re going to be a little bit better in understanding how to effectuate that program.”
  — Brooke Rollins ([25:26])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:28 – Isabel launches episode topic, lampooning viral “milk is racist” takes
• 05:32 – Compilation of social media critics explaining the “dog whistle” theory
• 14:41 – Historian/analyst links milk to historic eugenics and immigration panic
• 16:13 – Isabel rebuts, highlights diversity in campaign, personal view on milk
• 21:06 – Brooke Rollins interview begins; new food pyramid & policy rationale
• 28:33 – Rollins explains “Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act” & nutritional reasoning
• 34:25 – Revival of agriculture & USDA support for young/new farmers
• 38:14 – Secretary Rollins on bureaucracy, government waste, positive experiences in USDA

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Tone and Style

The episode is fast-paced, irreverent, and direct, blending policy explanation with social media commentary and humor. Isabel’s candor sets a conversational, sometimes confrontational tone; Rollins is earnest and policy-focused. Both emphasize personal responsibility and skepticism toward sensationalist or identity-based criticism.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Isabel Brown Show debunks conspiratorial claims about the Trump administration’s whole milk policy, unpacks the science and spending priorities behind current USDA guidelines, and highlights broader trends in nutrition, personal health responsibility, and the revival of American agriculture. In dismissing the “milk is racist” narrative, Brown and Rollins champion localism, evidence-based public health, and government accountability.

Transcript

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[Isabel Brown]

Experian Got Milk? The milk mustache is apparently back in America, but it literally is a Hitler mustache. In case you didn't know, drinking milk makes you an unabashed white supremacist and basically Adolf Hitler, apparently. At least according to the new talking points of the deranged American radical left. Should we do a wellness check on these people? Honestly, breaking it all down today with special guest Secretary Brooke Rollins of the Department of Agriculture on the Isabel Brown Show. In case you guys missed it, last week there were a gazillion posts freaking out about, of all things, milk because the milk mustache is back in 2026. The era of Got milk is no longer relegated to the early 2000s, but instead is now relevant 20 plus years later because President Trump signed a bill into law that puts whole milk back in our public schools. I guess at one point in our nation's history, not very long ago, Michelle Obama removed whole milk from schools in an effort to fight obesity. Ironic how this has now had the exact opposite effect in society. And I'm sure we all remember Cor quoting throughout our entire childhoods the epitome of what it was like to drink milk at school. From Napoleon Dynamite, I see you're drinking 1%. Is that because you think you're fat? Because you're not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to. The number of times I've quoted that in the last weekend. Literally embarrassing. But people are actually not so happy about putting whole milk back in school. And in particular leftist social media is is freaking out, like breathing in a bag, really angry and upset about what the hidden secret meaning of the government promoting whole milk actually is. Yeah, let's just do a wellness check because I think these people really need help, like really, really bad. My entire Twitter feed over the weekend was from people like this person Yiffany Rabbit, who tweeted and if y' all are wondering why the government is posting about whole milk, this, I guess is why. Yes, milk has been used by white nationalists as a symbol of perceived racial superiority. You can't make this up. Functioning as a dog whistle within their movement. The symbolism, I guess, stems from the fact that the genetic trait for adult lactose, lactose tolerance, meaning you can digest lactose, is more common in people of Northern European descent than in many other populations. White supremacists have appropriated this genetic difference, which evolved due to historic farming practices, as scientific proof of a master race. And this one insane person tweeting, this is not alone. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of these posts from people and insisting that the only reason the Trump administration is working so hard to culturally reinstate whole milk as a staple of the American diet couldn't possibly be about nutritional benefits, couldn't possibly be about helping people eat real food. Actual, holistic, nutritious, real food. No, no, no, no, no. This is actually because Donald Trump is literally Hitler and we're trying to reinstate white people as the master race. This person, Sean in Orlando, tweeted, whole. Whole milk is a dog whistle. It's a bizarre one, but it is. It's based on the idea that only white people can drink and process whole milk. They can't. And minorities are largely lactose intolerant. They aren't. Which makes them superior to all races. And they put an actual article here about how milk is a symbol of neo Nazi hate. I guess news to me beyond anything I could ever have imagined. But that's what the Internet is saying. And if you think that's bad, if you think the Twitter sphere is embarrassing, try TikTok. These people are having absolute meltdowns about how the milk mustache is basically a Hitler mustache. I guess there are hundreds of videos from people all over Twitter. All over. All over TikTok, rather, all over the country, All. All age ranges. I mean, it's genuinely insane. But watch this little compilation we put together and then tell me that these people aren't getting paid. Literally, they are reading the exact same script replicated over and over and over again. I wonder who could possibly be funding the Milk is a white supremacist dog whistle talking point that is now dominating American politics. Listen to this.

[Commentator/Analyst]

This is a post from the Department of Agriculture, usda. And this is also a white supremacist dog whistle. And there's going to be a bunch of people are already collectively rolling their eyes and saying, what are you talking about? This is a dog whistle. And so is this. This was posted by the White House. Yes, they're doing this whole milk campaign because Obama Took whole milk out of schools. And that's the angle they're playing. It doesn't change the fact that the terrible people think this is about them. And the whole white supremacist thinking that somehow milk is like a white superiority thing is insane. The only reason that Europeans digest milk the way that they do is because of how long they produce dairy. Guess what? There are a bunch of cultures in Africa that raise dairy cows and they can also drink milk.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

This is not about milk, people. This was taken directly from the USDA Twitter account today. I don't care what you say, it's not about milk. Especially when this was posted from the US Department of Labor Twitter the other day. One homeland, one people, one heritage. Put the two and two together, people.

[Social Media Critic]

What does this ad from the US Department of Agriculture remind you of? Drink whole milk. The milk mustache is back and it's in black and white. If it wasn't in black and white, it would be one thing, but this is very concerning to me. It says, drink up America. Hashtag drink whole milk. And not sure if this is a dog whistle or it's just there it is, but I mean, that's sort of what a dog whistle is, right? Something that could be washed off as a coincidence.

[Historian/Expert]

This is a dog whistle. Not gonna argue with you about it. I'm just gonna tell you the history of how it came to be. Back in 2017, a group of white supremacists who would go on to host the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally came up with this idea that the fact that Caucasian people have an easier time processing lactose than African people meant that white people were superior.

[Cultural Commentator]

So the Trump administration has just posted this image. It says, the milk mustache is back. Drink whole milk. And this is not just about milk. This is an extreme dog whistle. Let me explain to you the history of colonization and dairy. Food is a principal tool in colonization. And when the colonizers came to America and started, you know, colonizing, they forced dairy products upon the indigenous people because they claimed it would make them more civilized despite the indigenous people not being able to digest it. They called it poisonous. In particular, the Mojave people, who were on a primarily plant based diet. The US Government called them willfully ignorant and hopelessly lazy because they wouldn't feed dairy to their children. From the US Government standpoint, drinking dairy was a part of the superior diet, and drinking it would help instill more American values. Studies show that 75% of African American, Jewish, Native American, Mexican American, and 90% of Asian American adults are Unable to digest dairy products. Despite this, the US government is determined to push these products onto these groups of people. Hey guys.

[Isabel Brown]

So this is a dog whistle. And if you don't know what a dog whistle is, I'm gonna tell you to go to your local search engine and search up the definition of dog whistle. So I'm not accused of putting words in your your mouth, but then you'll see that this is an example of a dog whistle. These people don't even know what the definition of a dog whistle is to the point that they repeat this over and over and over again. This is a dog whistle. This is a dog whistle. This is a dog whistle. This isn't about milk. This is about something else. Oh, and by the way, everyone's posting about how we're one country from other government agencies. So put the two and two together, people. They literally tell you you have to go look up the definition of what a dog whistle is yourself. So let's do that. Actually, let's ask chat. Dog whistle definition. A dog whistle is a message, phrase or signal that has a hidden or coded meaning understood clearly by a specific group while appearing neutral or ordinary to the general public. Gee, maybe the hidden meaning associated with all of this is that you all are paid shills by some sort of probably Soros funded left wing advocacy organization that's trying to gaslight people into thinking milk is somehow about white supremacy when it has nothing to do with that at all. I watched these videos which my husband showed me over the weekend in just utter shock. Utter ha. See what I did there? Didn't even mean to do that because honestly, these people have lost their ever loving minds. Since when is milk the new face of white supremacy? They're running out of things to freak out about. But unbeknownst to me, apparently I'm the ignorant one because I guess these people have been reciting these talking points since the Charlottesville rallies in 2017. Remember the like very fine people on both sides thing? Yeah. Apparently this was all part of that PETA. PETA, which I like to call People Eating Tasty Animals, even ran stories about this on their website. I missed this back in 2017 because I had a life and you probably did too. So to refresh your memories, posted in March of 2017 on PETA's website, why Cow's milk is the perfect drink for supremacists. And they actually say here that dairy milk has long been embraced, long been embraced as a symbol of white supremacy. Geneticists are alarmed that white nationalists who are now using milk emojis and sharing photos of themselves chugging milk to celebrate their whiteness. Who is doing this? Is there some sort of like secret dark web milk society that we're all missing out? I've literally never once seen someone post a milk emoji or pictures of themselves chugging milk as their like, affiliation to literally Hitler. But okay, these people are contorting science and using it as an excuse to hate. I guess the New York Times even covered this back then because PETA references this article in a recent article in the New York Times, Evolutionary biologists state that because of a genetic mutation among Europeans, white people are more likely to be able to digest lactose. White nationalists are arguing that being able to drink another animal's breast milk somehow indicates that they are of the master race. Good grief, writes PETA. I mean, could you lose any more brain cells possible listening to these people? My word. Back to it in just a second. But first, I am so excited to talk to you guys about something that's hit me really hard as I am setting all of my goals for 2026 and especially approaching a new year for the first time for the whole year. As a mom, I have realized that every decision I make about my health is not just about me anymore. It's about showing up for my daughter Isla, being present for all of her milestones, and having the energy to keep up with her for decades to come. And that is a totally different kind of motivation. But here's the problem. Our healthcare system is built to be reactive. You wait until something is really wrong and then you try to fix it. So when you want to take a proactive approach, it can be really hard to know where to even start. That is exactly why I have been partnering with our friends at Jevotee, making proactive health easier than ever. Jevoty offers different membership tiers so that you can choose what fits your specific health needs. You get comprehensive at home blood draws that test over 100 different health markers way beyond what your standard checkup ever covers. And then they give you personalized health plans with custom supplement protocols. You have access to functional longevity specialists and discounts on supplements and specialty testing moving forward when you need it the most. This was such an easy process. They sent a phlebotomist to my house, drew a bunch of blood, and then in like two, three days tops, I got a full panel review of everything that was going really well in my body, the things that I needed to be working a little bit harder on, and even my biological age, which is only 18 so your girl is aging like fine wine. But I loved having this incredibly clear understanding of what was going on inside my own body and the steps that I need to take proactively to make sure that my health stays incredibly important moving forward this year. If you're looking for something like that, Jevity is probably available in your backyard, because they are now available in 47 states across the country. So if you are ready to be there for the people that you love, not just today, but for decades to come, you can use Code Isabel at the link in today's show notes for 20% off. Because investing in your health now means so much more time with the people who matter the most. Don't mistake any of this for actual intelligence, to be honest. Don't mistake any of the scripted messaging or the hyper organization of these people on the left to be any semblance of real knowledge or IQ or intelligence at large. These people genuinely believe, and I'm not making this up, that milk didn't even have any sort of cultural relevance before the founding of the United States of America. And no, I'm not kidding. They'll tell you this themselves, as this tiktoker did.

[Historian/Political Analyst]

This drink whole milk poster put out by Donald Trump feels racist. Because it is. And I'm sure a lot of y' all are asking yourselves, why would a political movement suddenly care about milk? Well, that's because milk is not about nutrition, and it never has been. It's always been about who America decides is the ideal and the correct kind of human. So this was not random. These posters first started in the 1900s. America. Right at the time that America was panicking about immigration. Hmm, Sounds kind of familiar. And at this same time, eugenics was American science, pseudo science, and they ranked human beings like dog breeds. Milk was sold as fuel for the ideal human body, which was always white, northern European, tall, strong and fertile. Milk became the symbol of strength, purity, growth, and discipline. And these posters overwhelmingly featured white children with pink rosy cheeks holding whole white milk. Meanwhile, black Americans were labeled scientifically inferior. Asian people, Jewish people, indigenous people were all seen as biologically suspect. And at this time, it was widely known that non European people, black, brown, indigenous Asian communities were lactose intolerant. And white America framed this as weakness, not genetics. The framing was, if milk makes strong Americans and you can't digest milk, maybe you're not meant to be an American.

[Isabel Brown]

Or maybe. Hear me out. Maybe, just maybe, it's just milk. Maybe, maybe it's just a drink that humans of all backgrounds have been enjoying for hundreds, if not thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years. I'm sorry, but if the Trump administration was really, really hellbent on trying to reinstate milk equals white as the superior race, whole milk is a symbol of whiteness in America and white superiority, why would they have featured. Let's just use our brains for two seconds, put our logic thinking caps on. Why would they have featured former NFL player Frank Murphy as one of the poster people of the whole milk campaign? Of the milk mustaches back campaign? Why would they have featured Ennis Kantor now Ennis Freedom, God bless him, someone who was born in Switzerland to Kurdish and Turkish parents as the poster face of the milk Mustaches back campaign? Why, if this was all about white people being the superior race, would the Trump administration have featured Jewish college athletic coach Bruce Pearl of Auburn University as the poster face of their whole milk milk mustaches back campaign? These people are so desperately grasping at straws. Desperately. And there are plenty of legitimate criticisms you can give any presidential administration, but they're so desperate to find anything to discredit this administration that they now are jumping on the milk is racist campaign. Wow. You know, I'm not the biggest fan of milk by itself myself, to be honest with you. I drank rotten milk when I was 4 or 5 years old maybe, and it kind of all tastes like that if I drink it by myself or by itself now without it being associated with anything. But I will say, in the last couple of years, totally before the whole milk is back thing was even remotely a conversation in American culture and the Maha movement, I made a switch away from almond milk in my coffee and in all of the stuff that I was drinking back towards whole milk because it was alarmingly shocking to me how many seed oils and chemicals that my body could not really break down were present in all of the healthier plant based milk alternatives like almond milk and coconut milk and oat milk. Oat milk is the worst, by the way. It tastes terrible. Terrible. I'm sorry for all the oat milk stands out there. Literally disgusting. So I made that switch a couple of years ago and actually I have felt so much better in my gut, health, in everything, ever since I started putting whole milk back into all of the stuff that I was drinking. It's. You're still gonna find me hard pressed to drink a gigantic glass of milk all by itself. It's just, it's a taste thing, it's a personal preference thing. I can't necessarily do it, but I do put whole milk in everything and I make sure that whole milk is what I put in my coffee when I go buy it out when I'm at a coffee shop, etc, and I've never once in my entire life heard that this was like a white supremacist thing. But this makes me want to drink whole milk even more. Like these people are so, so beyond stupid and probably getting paid for these types of campaigns by some sort of left wing activist organization just desperately trying to make Donald Trump literally Hitler for the 4,000th time in the last couple of years that even I, who don't really, I don't really like milk. I'm just going to be honest with you, I want to go upstairs and pour myself a cold glass of whole milk and drink the entire thing right now because I'm being radicalized into liking milk because of these insane people. To help you understand and to get a better picture of our understanding of why the admin is actually reviving whole milk in 2026, I decided to bring in the big guns and sit down with an expert at the top level of this conversation. So today on the show, we are sitting down with United States Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for the whole scoop, or maybe should I say the whole glass of whole milk. As to what's really going on here in Washington, D.C. please join me in welcoming Secretary Rollins into the show. Secretary Brooke Rollins, our amazing Secretary of Agriculture, joins us on the show today. Thank you so much, Secretary Rollins, for taking time out of your very busy schedule. It's fun to see you here on the show. I just saw you a few days ago at the unveiling of our amazing new food pyramid. So for those who may not be paying attention or as plugged into what's happening at USDA and hhs, let us know the updates. We've got a new food pyramid, a whole milk bill that was just signed into law by the President. I'm so excited to get into all of it with you.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

Well, it I tell you, and thank you so much, Isabel, for having me talk about this because it really is a, it's a new day in Washington, in our country and we talk about it. Doesn't seem probably to you or to me that this should be that big of a deal. The message is eat real food, stop eating junk, don't eat a lot of sugar, don't eat if you can't help it, things out of a package. I mean, this doesn't seem like this is rocket science, but what was announced last week and it was so fun to have you there with Bobby Kennedy who's our Secretary of Health and Human Services, my partner, I'm of course agriculture. What we had been working on really for the last year was a complete reset of, of the dietary guidelines. And that's important for a lot of reasons. Number one, it's important that we are basically setting the standard for America. We flipped the triangle upside down. And what that means was, you know, before when I was growing up and, and probably your parents and others, at the very little tip top of the pyramid was, you know, try to limit proteins and meats and things. And at the bottom was eat a bunch of carbohydrates and grains and cereals. But we've seen over the last, you know, however that that has not worked, that we have a chronic health epidemic in our country. Thirteen years ago, Michelle Obama led a big effort in a very righteous idea of the childhood obesity epidemic. But her solution was get whole milk out of schools. Drink everything, you know, and eat anything without any fat, red meat, et cetera. And what we found was that actually had the opposite effect. And again, we have the most unhealthy pop in our lifetimes and the most unhealthy population of any developed country in the world. And it goes back to what we've been eating. So a completely flipping the food pyramid. Eat real food. Eat protein, Eat steak, eat chicken, eat pork, eat butter. Drink whole milk. This is all good for you. Everything in moderation, but all good for you. But also why this is important from a policy perspective. USDA spends almost $400 million a day. U.S. department of Agriculture, USDA, my department. $400 million a day on nutrition programs. Only school lunches, the snack program, which is food stamps. I mean, it really is mind boggling in many states that's more than their entire annual budget. And we're spending it every day on just nutrition. What the dietary guidelines and the new Whole Milk for Healthy Kids act will do is it will recalibrate what the government is directing spending money on, incentivizing market moving and what it is that we're spending and putting into our school l allowing our SNAP beneficiaries to spend money on. Maybe not a bag of chips and a Coke and a candy bar, right? I mean, why would a taxpayer fund such an unhealthy diet that on the back end causes billions and billions of dollars in diabetes, pre diabetes, et cetera. So it was a again, a lot of people may say, well, they flip the food pyramid. Of course it makes sense to eat protein, but really it is so, so much bigger than that. Is a fundamental shift for the future of our country and the future health of our country.

[Isabel Brown]

It really is. And surprisingly, I've seen a lot of people be somewhat uneasy about this idea of literally flipping the pyramid upside down from a conservative governance perspective. And I know you are a diehard conservative America first patriot as well. So I'm curious to get your take on this. A lot of people were saying this isn't the conservatarian Ron Swanson way, where you have the freedom to balloon up and make yourself £400. And that's what real freedom in this country is built upon. My response, obviously to that has been that real freedom is found in our ability to properly govern our own lives. Right? To do what we should, not just anything that we can. And so much of that has to be really boiled down to what it actually means to be educated on nutrition right now that we've been encouraging. Eat whatever you want and everything is totally safe to consume. But in reality, we're poisoning people long term with these chronic health epidemics like diabetes and obesity, as you just mentioned. What's your response to that and how is this truly an America first conservative policy lens that we're looking through here?

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

Yeah, it's such a good question. The first thing I would say is we're not telling anyone what they have to eat. We're not saying we're going to remove all of the bad stuff, we're going to shut down the fast food. We're going to require. This is really just what the government is suggesting, you know, and that's a little bit scary. It's Ronald Reagan's. I'm from the government and I'm here to help. But at the end of the day, you know, combining all of this scientific research, understanding really where we are in the history of America and American health, it's a national security issue, Isabel, when three quarters of your young Americans military age can't even pass the military readiness test. And then the flip side, and when we move into the SNAP programs and where the government programs, when I get pushed back and say, well, listen, if someone gets a SNAP dollar from US Department of Agriculture and they're 40 million people in America who do, which is an astounding number, we're hopefully going to be winding that back as the economy gets better. But the 40 million people that do, I don't believe it is fair. And President Trump does not believe it is fair for the taxpayer to be funding that beneficiary to go buy junk food and Coke, et cetera, soda. I should say, but including Coke, Pepsi, everything. Why would the taxpayer fund the Supplemental Nutrition Program? This isn't about funding freedom and telling people what they can or can't eat. Listen, if that person on SNAP wants to go spend their own money, not the taxpayer dollar on a soda and a bag of chips and something else, then, then, okay, this is America. We, you have the freedom to do that. But if the taxpayer is going to fund it, we're going to be a little bit better in understanding how to effectuate that program, how to execute it. And then the billions of dollars saved in the healthcare system that this will eventually turn into, I see 40 cents of every American tax, $40 cents goes to health care and funding Medicaid, Medicare, et cetera. It is bankrupting our states. So this is going to solve for a lot of that. And it will also begin to move our diet, support our farmers, open up and incentivize more young farmers, young ranchers to get into the business where they can raise a herd of 10, you know, beef cattle, beef cows, and they can sell it to their local school. Because all of a sudden we're incent. Instead of serving school lunches out of a package you're serving based on the production and new farmers that surround you and sell to your school, your hospitals, your veterans, your military, et cetera, it is a whole structural change to our entire system.

[Isabel Brown]

One that I am so excited about. I wanna come back to the revival of agriculture with new farmers and young people really connecting with ag in an exciting way. But first, you mentioned school lunches. And we had some really big news this week out of the White House with President Trump signing into law a new bill about whole milk in schools. I am so excited about this. But for those that maybe don't remember what the milk they were drinking in school used to be or are unfamiliar with this big policy shift, can you walk us through what the law actually says now?

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

Well, basically, as I mentioned previously, this all started with Michelle Obama and they, the Obama administration made it illegal to serve whole milk in schools as they were working to, you know, bring down the obesity epidemic. But what we learned, what happened, it actually got worse. And when we took that whole milk out of schools. Whole milk is one of the most perfect, the most perfect things you can put into your body that God gave us. You know, in Exodus, the second book of the Bible talks about the land of milk and honey. I mean, the. This comes from a gift from God. It's like the greatest blessing. So many, so much of this beautiful food that that he gave us and we took that out and we water watered down the milk and we sucked out the nutrients and, and, and young bodies weren't getting that satiated, you know, healthy fat, filled up feeling. And so you're, you're constantly feeding while at the same time they're drinking something that is replaced with, with juices or soda or energy drinks. You're not getting that bone density that that whole milk gives you. Dr. Ben Carson, who is amazing, who's now on the USDA team as our chief nutrition advisor, of course, former cabinet member, a 30 year brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins, I mean, just one of the greatest Americans he is, traveled with me. We went to Pennsylvania yesterday after signing the whole Milk act on Wednesday with the President to pass out whole milk in Pennsylvania. And he would tell you, and he could go through it. I'm an ag major from Texas A and M, so I can't get into all the new, I don't know, I don't know all this stuff. But he'll talk specifically about what a growing brain needs, what nutrients, what vitamins, what that looks like, and how whole milk checks so many of those boxes for these young brains. So by pulling the whole milk out of schools by stop, you know, providing these really good saturated fat, good fat proteins to these kiddos, you've compromised potential brain development, body development, bone development, strength development and energy. And, and we've got a whole generation of kids that we're now working to reeducate and get better food in front of them.

[Isabel Brown]

Just as we are spending today focused on reviving our health with whole milk, it is very important that we spend 20, 26 getting whole nights of sleep as well. See what I did there? Yeah, that joke sucks. Probably because I haven't really gotten many whole nights of sleep since my daughter was born. But I am so grateful for the limited sleep I am getting that I know I'm getting incredibly quality rest. Thanks to our friends at Helix because we finally found the right mattress for our family. That is usually an incredibly complicated process, but finding the right mattress doesn't have to be that confusing. Our friends at Helix make it incredibly straightforward with their sleep quiz, which matches you to the perfect mattress based on your specific preferences and sleep needs. They are not just another mattress company either. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand out there on the market with glowing reviews from so many different major publications like Forbes and Wired. It is not just marketing hype. I can also promise you that one study that they conducted found that 82% of participants actually saw an increase in their deep sleep cycles while sleeping on a Helix mattress, which is pretty impressive when you think about how crucial quality sleep is for everything else in life. My mattress has been a game changer in my family and I'll be honest, I was skeptical. I was a naysayer thinking to myself, how great can a mattress actually be? But when it showed up at our front door, my husband and I were so eager to try it out. And I will never go back to any other mattress brand other than Helix. My daughter, usually at like 2, 3 in the morning, loves to end up in our bed too because it is just that comfortable. And it helps so much knowing that even if I'm not getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night consistently like I should be, the few hours that I am getting, I'm getting a restful deep quality sleep. Helix even offers free shipping straight to your door, a 120 night sleep trial so that you can actually test it out in your own home. And returns and exchanges are totally seamless if it's not quite right for you. Plus they back everything up with a limited lifetime warranty. You guys can start sleeping right tonight by ordering a Helix mattress today. Go to helixsleep.com Isabelle for 27% off site wide. That is helixsleep.com Isabelle For 27% off site wide. And make sure you enter our show name after you check out so that they know we sent you from the Isabel Brown show. One more time that is helixsleep.com Isabel so so important. I'm a new mom. I have an almost nine month old so she's not quite drinking her whole milk yet. I'm still feeding her. Thank you so much.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

That's the best.

[Isabel Brown]

But it has been such an amen. Amen. It has been such a powerful journey trying to connect with this idea of being responsible for our children's health and what we're feeding our kids. And that's even been really shock to me that the easy options presented to parents are also ultra processed for your babies. I mean this starts so, so so early in life and the studies that are coming out about this are so important. So knowing that I'm encouraged as a young mom to feed my baby steak and grass fed butter and milk. These things are so important for our children's development and I as a new Maha mom, I'm so grateful for it. Switching gears a bit, you mentioned the revival of agriculture with new farmers new and reinstituting the idea of connecting with ag in so many different ways. Farmers and Ranchers with this next generation. That is what we're observing culturally with Gen Z in so many different ways. With the content that I engage in every day, it seems like the coolest thing you can do as a young American is to leave the city and build a homestead with your extended family and grow your own food and reconnect with the land that way. How can young people engage in this? And what is USDA doing to help that revival?

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

You know, it is even you just talking about it. I get so excited. I've got chill bumps. I grew up in small town America. I grew up in a town of a thousand people about an hour south of Fort Worth in Texas. I grew up biggest blessing, even though single mom, broken family, but she really worked for my sisters and me to have us grow up on some land to bail hay and fix fences and raise animals. At the time, of course, I didn't realize that, you know, it was going to be full circle one day. I was going to be the Secretary of Agriculture. It's an amazing country, but we saw this trend for decades and decades of people leaving the country and leaving rural America and moving into the urban areas. And that trend began to reverse about five years ago. And now you've got actually for the first time, I think in a hundred or so years you have, the amount of young people moving to urban areas is decreasing versus increasing because of what you just explained. I was in New Mexico, one of my first trips to Secretary of Ag and I met two young brothers. I think they were in their late 20s and early 30s, and I believe they were raised somewhere in the Northeast somehow. I think their parents were doctors, got moved to New Mexico, young, beautiful families, two Jewish brothers. And for 10 years they had decided to become farmers. And they were, they were growing about 250,000 heads of lettuce on just a couple of acres in Albuquerque. But then selling all of this beautiful lettuce to their local school. And I told them, I said, this is the dream, right? How can we inspire the young Americans who maybe don't want to sit in an office and they want to be part of the land and they, they want to be part of what makes America great. And in the rural areas of hard work and love of the land and love of country. And they said it hasn't been easy. But we have begun at USDA to open that aperture to, to incentivize, to have better programs, to, to lengthen, to make loans cheaper for those that want to dive in. A big challenge facing America right now in My world is the cost of beef. Our cattle herd is at a 75 year low. A lot of reasons for that, but one of the main, main, one main ones was that Biden and Kamala Harris declared war on beef and cattle herds because of climate change. The, the cow methane or, you know, their gas was basically part of climate change, which is so crazy. But so now we're, we war on cattle. We're opening up lands across the West. We're creating new programs where people can jump in with 5 head or 10 head or 50 head and, and basically run a business. So more to come on that, but I just couldn't be more excited as the, the average age of the farmer has been moving up and up and up for a long time now. Hopefully we can reverse that trend and it starts coming back down again.

[Isabel Brown]

I love hearing that. I grew up somewhat tangentially associated with the agriculture world, with my extended family, and the experiences that I had on big farms and RA as a kid growing up in Colorado were the most magical memories I had throughout my whole childhood. Certainly something I want to share with my children back out west someday. We'll get back out there. Although focused on serving the country right now here in D.C. in our last couple minutes, America, amen. We'll get back to our ag roots someday. Secretary Rollins, in our last couple minutes, I got a fun question for you. What has been the most surprising thing that you have discovered as a cabinet secretary? I know you've been working in government for quite some time. Is there anything that is really shocking to you about the levels of bureaucracy and the work that we need to continue doing? The work that this administration is working so hard on right now to shrink the size of our government and help get power back into the hands of real Americans.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

Yeah, the return of power to the people, that's what this president represented when he came down the escalator in 2015? What I will say is I was in the first Trump administration. I ran the Domestic Policy Council. I built the president's domestic policy agenda. Everything from healthcare to border security to energy. I really had an amazing opportunity to put my arms around all of it. But what I didn't have was the opportunity to lead an agency. USDA has almost 100,000 employees. We run the SNAP program. We run all the farmer programs. We have the Forest Service run all the forest lands. I've got, I think, 10,000 firefighters. This is a massive agency. And so what I will say is that the shocking things in terms of being negatively, like just ridiculously stunned is the amount of waste and fraud and abuse. We're certainly seeing it on snap. And I think the shutdown really elevated SNAP because that became kind of the firing line between the Republicans and the Democrats, which allowed me the opportunity to do a lot of messaging on. We've got 200,000 dead people in just the red states getting food stamps, right? We've got 500,000 people getting two benefits, two times what they should. This is just the red states. The blue states won't give me their data. I can't even figure out in the blue states. I'm in litigation with the Democrat governors right now. So that has been shocking. But the ability to engage the American people, to understand that we are fighting every day to change it. So that would be the negative. The positive has been, for me, two quick things. First, the love and the friendship that our Cabinet has really been. We've built this. We all, a lot of us knew each other very well. But you can see that for those that actually watch the very long Cabinet meetings or see us all working together, it is real. And these are my brothers and sisters for life. We are constantly talking to each other, checking on each other. We throw pizza parties the night before every cabinet meeting. I host a Cabinet Bible study here at U.S. department of Ag every Wednesday. I mean, that's been really special. That's been an incredible benefit. Positive joy. But the other thing is how many wonderful people that I work with in my department, U.S. department of Agriculture, that are career staff that are really in it for the country and they have servant leaders hearts. And I think a lot of times our side tends to cast judgment on lifetime career civil service. And listen, don't get me wrong, the stories are out there of those who've tried to stop the Trump agenda, those who worked against us the first term. But my experience at USDA has been the opposite. The career folks out in the offices out across the country are amazing. My career team here at usda, they serve every, every USDA secretary, whether it's my security team or my video team who's in here with me right now, I mean, they are just the most wonderful Americans who work so hard. And so that's been a real plus as well. So there have been some real, real eye openers for me. And God has been so good. He has put the best group of people together for this moment in time to save America. We're all stepping up to meet the moment, this moment. And I just couldn't be more excited or encouraged or inspired by the people I work with by our incredible president, my boss, vice president. And we've got three more years, so we're working hard, hard, hard.

[Isabel Brown]

Well, we see it every single day and truly are so grateful for you and every member of the cabinet made for such a time as this. Secretary Rollins, thank you for the work that you are doing at USDA and fighting for our country in all of the ways with all the hats that you've worn over the last couple of years. We are so excited to see what you guys continue to accomplish. And may our next interview be wearing cowgirl boots on a ranch somewhere back out west. I would love to do that together, too.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

I am in. Let's make that happen. That sounds amazing.

[Isabel Brown]

Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

Thank you, Isabel. Great to be on.

[Isabel Brown]

Huge thank you again to Secretary Rollins for joining us today. And I know tons of you are already asking me if we're going to be covering on the show. What happened? What the heck happened? At the church in Minneapolis this weekend with esteemed journalist, so to speak, and grade A moron, more accurately, Don Lemon. Tomorrow on the show, I promise. In the meantime, have an amazing week. And when you have your afternoon coffee, pick me up this afternoon. Put some whole milk in your coffee, okay? Cheers to you guys. See you tomorrow.

[Dramatic Voice/Actor]

What was it like, Marlon, to be alone with God? Is that who you think I was alone with? I knew your father.

[Isabel Brown]

I am yet convinced that he was.

[Dramatic Voice/Actor]

Not of this world. All men know of the great Taliesin. Who am I, father, that the gods should war for my soul? Princess Garrus, saviour of our people. I know what the bull God offered you. I was offered the same. And there is a new power at work in the world. I've seen it. A God who sacrifices what he loves for us.

[Secretary Brooke Rollins]

We are each given only one life. Singer.

[Historian/Political Analyst]

No.

[Dramatic Voice/Actor]

We're given another. I learned of Yazu the Christ, and I have become his follower.

[Commentator/Analyst]

He's waiting on a miracle, and I.

[Isabel Brown]

Think you can give him one.

[Dramatic Voice/Actor]

Trust in Yezu. He is the only hope for men like us. Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the great light. Great light, Great darkness. Such things mattered to me then. What matters to you now, Mistress of lies? You, nephew. The sword of a high king. How many lives must be lost before you accept the power? Power you were born to wield. Still clinging to the promises of a God who has abandoned you. I cannot take up that sword again. You know what you must do. Great life, Forgive me. The time has come to be rebor.