2026-09-03T10:00:29.398Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/brooke-rollins-trump-agriculture-beef-screwworm
农业部长布鲁克·罗林斯在农场长大，曾自述与姐姐一同赢得过捕猪比赛，上周本该在爱荷华州博览会上如鱼得水。
但当她在得梅因的博览会上亮相时，白宫突然宣布将进口30万吨牛肉，这让她措手不及。
该举措本意在平抑杂货店的高肉价，但牧场主们对此并不满意。
她为这项计划辩护道：“我们会看到碎牛肉价格下降的。”她在爱荷华州对记者如是说，但几天后她又表示自己“并不了解相关细节”。
据一名参会者透露，罗林斯最初是在与爱荷华州谷物种植户和畜牧生产商的会谈变得紧张后，才出面回应媒体的。最终，她闭门与官员们磋商的时间，比公开露面、参观博览会场地的时间还要多。
对牛肉政策的焦虑，是这个通常低调的内阁职位最新遭遇的烦心事。未来几个月内，罗林斯能否安抚农民与农业行业的情绪，将对今年秋季的选举产生切实影响——共和党正努力保住全美传统红区的农村选民支持。
对十余名相关人士——包括现任和前任官员、行业人士、州官员以及熟悉美国农业部应对举措的人员——的采访显示，罗林斯是一名干练、精明的政治操盘手，她常常迅速行动以平息农民的不满，在庞大的农业部内部争取资金，并维持自己在特朗普面前的良好形象。
作为内阁领导层中为数不多的女性，内部人士称罗林斯是一名精明的谈判者，她还成功打入了以敌视“大型农业企业”著称的群体：小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪的MAHA支持者群体。
“她外表看起来甜美无害，”曾在德克萨斯公共政策基金会与罗林斯共事多年的前加州州议员查克·德沃尔说道，“柔外表下藏着钢铁般的意志。”
但消息人士也指出，农业部因特朗普政府的“DOGE式”削减政策而承受着巨大压力，并因与利益相关方沟通不一致而饱受批评。
其中一个关键案例是，罗林斯因建设一座用于应对新大陆螺旋锥蝇——一种寄生在牛身上的苍蝇——疫情的设施进度滞后而遭到抨击。批评人士称，她当时在考虑一名有政治关联的建筑承包商的提案时浪费了时间，一些内部人士如今表示，这一时间延误导致疫情更难控制。
罗林斯是土生土长的德克萨斯人，也是特朗普内阁中最精通政治的成员之一。自2025年2月接手农业部以来，她一直肩负着保护农民和牧场主免受一连串危机冲击的重任，而当时该行业已经面临诸多问题。
当时禽流感正在家禽群中肆虐，还蔓延至奶牛群，推高了鸡蛋价格。几十年前已在美国被根除的食肉性螺旋锥蝇寄生虫，正通过墨西哥向北扩散。而负责应对这些威胁的农业部，正随着DOGE式削减政策导致数万名员工流失，面临预算和人员编制的动荡。
自那以来，情况愈发糟糕。
干旱、关税、受伊朗战争推高的燃料和化肥成本，以及今年6月爆发的螺旋锥蝇危机，导致牛群数量减少，挤压了农场利润。根据破产报告平台Epiq AACER的数据，目前美国农场破产率已达六年来的最高点。
为平息不满情绪，拜登政府于周五宣布了简化牛肉加工流程的新举措。罗林斯随后在周一提出了投资重建美国牛群的计划。
然而，全国养牛者协会将这些加工流程调整称为“短期政治权宜之计”，称其无法解决农民的实际痛点——美国农业部则反驳这种批评“极为短视”。
罗林斯未就此次报道接受CNN采访，但农业部发言人表示：“罗林斯部长明确支持总统的‘美国优先’贸易议程”，并列举了近期在学校食品、化肥生产以及牧场主现代化建设方面的举措和成就。
发言人还称，本届政府的议程已大幅减少了农业贸易逆差。
去年，随着寄生苍蝇的威胁从南部边境逐步北上，罗林斯曾考虑启用特朗普青睐的一家公司，来开展一项价值数百万美元的灭蝇项目。
目前，应对新大陆螺旋锥蝇最有效的方法之一，是培育并释放数百万只不育苍蝇，它们交配后无法产出携带寄生虫的存活幼虫，从而根除害虫。
据一名前高级官员透露，在6月份德克萨斯州首次发现小牛感染病例之前，特朗普政府官员对建设美国不育苍蝇繁育设施的高昂成本犹豫不决，预估成本高达数亿美元。
“要说服[罗林斯和农业部领导层]必须立即行动，为即将到来的威胁做好准备，这极其困难，”该人士说道。
但据直接了解此事的消息人士透露，在罗林斯的推动下，最终与一家曾参与去年建造“鳄鱼恶魔岛”移民拘留设施的建筑公司展开了磋商。
该移民拘留设施建设速度极快，旨在配合联邦移民打击行动，但很快因被报道存在不人道待遇而引发争议。随着法律挑战不断增加，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯于今年6月宣布该设施已关闭。
这家曾在特朗普和前总统乔·拜登任期内都获得过边境墙建设政府合同的公司，提出了极具吸引力的方案：一项2500万美元的快速项目。
但据该官员透露，大约六个月后，该公司表示无法像最初提议的那样快速、低成本地建设一座大规模不育苍蝇繁育设施。消息人士还称，官员们担忧该公司无法遵守承诺的成本，且其方案可能对转基因苍蝇带来生物安全 containment 问题。
农业部未就其对该公司的考虑和相关流程的具体批评作出回应，但表示其应对螺旋锥蝇问题的举措已取得成功。
“2026年6月3日德克萨斯州发现首例病例时，许多‘专家’和媒体 outlets 预测会出现大规模疫情，但实际上该计划已见成效，截至今日，美国仅存在3例活跃的新大陆螺旋锥蝇病例，总计48例，”发言人说道。
尽管罗林斯于去年6月宣布计划在美墨边境附近的德克萨斯州建设一座设施，但直至约10个月后才付诸行动。两名熟悉相关讨论的消息人士称，这一延迟令农业行业和担忧潜在威胁的农民难以理解。
“我们浪费了大量时间听取这些提案，”其中一人说道。
美国农业部和美国陆军工程兵团最终于2026年3月将大部分合同授予了莫滕森建筑公司。建筑商于今年4月破土动工。罗林斯近日宣布，工程进度比计划提前七个月，有望在明年春季完工。预估总成本为7.5亿美元。
在德克萨斯州，即将卸任的农业委员西德·米勒——今年早些时候连任失败的共和党人——一再批评他认为的反应缓慢且不足。
“美国农业部没有动用所有可用工具，行动过于迟缓，仅依赖一种需要数年才能全面实施的部分解决方案，”他在6月的一份声明中说道。
米勒还暗示，农民可能不愿上报螺旋锥蝇病例，因为担心牲畜被检疫。
罗林斯当月回应了米勒的批评，称其指责“是非常不严肃的言论，或许来自一位只剩几个月任期的不严肃的农业委员”。尽管米勒在今年选举前几天获得了特朗普的背书，但他此前因一系列涉嫌腐败的丑闻，遭到包括共和党州长格雷格·阿博特在内的德克萨斯州政客的批评。
其他与罗林斯会面过的德克萨斯州人士则态度更为温和。
德克萨斯州农场局主席拉塞尔·博宁告诉CNN，罗林斯在获得确认后的几周内就开始讨论螺旋锥蝇问题。“我的意思是，当时她还在应对禽流感，鸡蛋价格飙升，所以她同时处理着多件事，”他说道。
“我们确实希望进度能快一点？没错，但事已至此，”他补充道，“所以，你知道，现在不要再互相指责了。我们就尽最大努力利用现有条件吧。”
农业部发言人表示，该机构的方针是“竭尽所能尽快增加产能”。
“所有举措都在以极快的速度推进，”他们补充道。
美国农业部称，自今年2月以来，截至上月末，他们已在美墨边境释放了10亿只不育苍蝇。
尽管罗林斯的批评者抱怨她没有农业部的直接工作经验，但她的农业背景深厚。
她曾是一名律师，来自德克萨斯州沃斯堡外一个小镇的农场。
在2024年《卢·霍尔茨秀》播客采访中，时任特朗普盟友组织“美国优先政策研究所”所长的罗林斯——该智库是她与经济学家拉里·库德洛共同创立的——回忆了大约十年前与姐姐一同赢得捕猪比赛的经历。
“我们制定了策略和计划，这似乎是我人生中的一个常见主题。你必须始终有策略，必须有计划，”她对这位著名的前橄榄球教练说道，“我们制定了计划来制服那头野猪——它是一头野性十足的大野猪——把它装进袋子里，拖过终点线。”
她在处理政策工作时似乎也采取了类似的策略。与她共事过的人表示，她注重细节、讲求实际，专注于达成共识并采取行动。
德克萨斯州农场局的博宁回忆起罗林斯去年召集13名德克萨斯州州主管开会的情景。
“她说：‘我希望你们每个人都告诉我一个对你或你所在地区至关重要的问题，’”他说道，“她把所有问题都记了下来，然后逐一落实解决。”
特朗普团队早在2016年就曾联系过她，当时她因领导总部位于奥斯汀的德克萨斯公共政策基金会而声名鹊起，该基金会从一个小型保守智库迅速发展成为小政府、自由市场的强大力量。
“那不是智库，而是‘行动智库’。所以她始终专注于将理念付诸实践，”曾在该基金会与她共事的德沃尔说道。
罗林斯于选举前数月加入特朗普的首次总统竞选团队，担任经济顾问，但在特朗普胜选后拒绝前往华盛顿任职。
直到2018年，她才加入特朗普政府，受命将“德克萨斯模式”引入联邦政策。
到2018年，罗林斯已升任特朗普美国创新办公室主任，随后出任白宫国内政策委员会主任，她的职业生涯也由此重新与农业政策产生交集。
尽管长期效忠特朗普，但两名熟悉内部过渡谈判的人士表示，在特朗普的第二届政府中，罗林斯原本并没有明确的职位。她是特朗普赢得第二届总统任期后，最后一名获得提名的内阁级职位人选。
“我当时有机会问：‘农业部怎么样？’我完全不知道她……学过农业，”特朗普今年3月在向农民发表演讲时说道，“就算她没学过，我也会把她安排到那里。”
罗林斯曾表示，她不确定“还能找到比这位总统更支持牧场主、农民和美国农村地区的人了”，并称特朗普从本届政府伊始就完全支持她的工作需求。
“我走进椭圆形办公室说：‘先生，我们的牲畜正面临相当严重的威胁，’”罗林斯今年6月在参议院委员会上说道，“他说：‘那你需要什么？’”
特朗普则称罗林斯工作“出色”，并称她是天生的领导者。
“布鲁克，我一直说，她可以经营世界上任何一家公司。她能管理这些大公司。她是一位优秀的高管，”他在3月的演讲中说道。
但罗林斯不得不创造性地利用农业部的预算，来解决特朗普第二届任期内农民遭遇的诸多困境。
消息人士此前告诉CNN，去年，在关税压力挤压农民利润之际，她曾冲进椭圆形办公室，宣称自己找到了30亿美元的紧急救助资金。
政府随后宣布设立120亿美元的救助基金。
目前另一项潜在的紧急救助基金也在酝酿中：上个月，众议院通过了一项同样为120亿美元的救助方案，目前正等待参议院审议。
由阿肯色州参议员约翰·布兹曼领导的参议院共和党人，似乎急于敲定救助方案，以便农民规划2027年的播种季。但由于9月日程繁忙，包括需要通过更广泛的联邦预算或持续决议案，该方案的命运仍未可知。
堪萨斯州农民联盟执行主任尼克·列文多夫斯基表示，对于正在规划下一个播种季的农民来说，救助可能来得不够快。除了伊朗冲突带来的压力，美国还在与主要农机供应商加拿大就贸易协定展开争执。
“这些挑战不会很快消失。我们要到2027年很久之后，甚至更久，才能看到任何形式的缓解，再加上关税的影响，”列文多夫斯基说道，“农民和消费者、普通民众一样，正四面受困。”
特朗普宣布进口牛肉一事——尽管进口来源地仍存在诸多疑问——引发了新一轮的不满和共和党内部的公开担忧。
研究肉类定价的堪萨斯州立大学农业经济学家格林·汤森表示，养牛生产者“越来越担忧政治政策环境的不可预测性”。这种不确定性对养牛行业尤为棘手，因为扩大牛群需要5至15年的投资周期。
“大多数人只有在经济回报看起来非常丰厚足以承担风险，或者他们对相当程度的有限风险和不确定性感到安心时，才会进行多年期投资，”他说道，“而现在，养牛场主看不到这两个条件得到满足。”
“距离中期选举还有71天，目前我们没有可以传递给农业地区的积极信息，”即将退休的北卡罗来纳州参议员汤姆·蒂利斯在8月24日对记者说道，“如果你认为在一段时间内提供补贴牛肉就能让农民满意，并系统性地降低价格，那你就错了。”
CNN的杰夫·泽莱尼、亚当·坎ryn、伊丽莎白·布查瓦尔德和摩根·里默为本报道贡献了内容。
One of the only women left in Trump’s Cabinet has mostly been doing damage control
2026-09-03T10:00:29.398Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/politics/brooke-rollins-trump-agriculture-beef-screwworm
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who grew up on a farm and once described winning a hog-catching contest with her sister, should have been in her element at the Iowa State Fair last week.
But she seemed to have been caught off guard when, just as she was making an appearance at the fair in Des Moines, the White House announced a deal to import 300,000 tons of beef.
It was intended to offset high prices at the grocery stores, but ranchers were not pleased.
She defended the plan – “We’re going to see that cost of ground beef go down,” she told reporters in Iowa – even as days later she said she was “not privy” to talk about the details.
Rollins had initially addressed the media after a meeting with Iowa grain farmers and livestock producers grew testy, according to one participant. The secretary ended up spending more time behind closed doors with officials than in public, touring the fairgrounds.
The consternation over beef policy is the latest headache for a normally low-profile Cabinet post. Rollins’ ability to keep the peace with farmers and the agriculture industry over the next few months could have real impacts on elections this fall, as Republicans work to hold onto rural voters in traditionally red districts across the country.
Interviews with more than a dozen people, including current and former officials, industry figures, state officials and people familiar with the US Department of Agriculture’s response depict Rollins as a capable, savvy political operator who has often moved quickly to contain farmer anger, find money inside a sprawling agency and keep herself in Trump’s good graces.
One of few women remaining in the leadership ranks, insiders say Rollins is a shrewd negotiator who has also managed to make inroads with a constituency known for its animosity to “Big Ag”: Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s MAHA supporters.
“She’s deceptively sweet,” said Chuck DeVore, a former California state assemblyman who worked with Rollins for years at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “There’s a lot of steel underneath that velvet.”
But sources also describe a department under severe strain from DOGE-driven cuts and criticized for inconsistent communication with stakeholders.
In one key instance, Rollins came under fire over delays to build a facility needed to help combat an epidemic of New World screwworm, a parasitic fly, in cattle. Critics say time was lost while she entertained a proposal from a politically connected construction contractor — time some insiders now say made the outbreak harder to manage.
Rollins, a native Texan and one of Trump’s most politically fluent Cabinet members, has been saddled with shielding farmers and ranchers from cascading crises since she took over USDA in February 2025, when the sector was already facing a slew of problems.
Bird flu was ravaging poultry flocks, spreading through dairy herds and driving up egg prices. The flesh-eating screwworm livestock parasite, which had been eradicated from the US decades ago, was creeping north through Mexico. And the agency charged with managing those threats was bracing for budget and staffing upheaval as DOGE cuts began thinning its ranks of tens of thousands of employees.
Since then, things have only gotten worse.
Drought, tariffs, fuel and fertilizer costs pushed up by the war in Iran and the screwworm crisis that hit this June have depleted herds and squeezed farm profits. Today, US farm bankruptcies are at a six-year high, according to data from Epiq AACER, a bankruptcy reporting platform.
In an apparent bid to assuage discontent, on Friday, the administration announced new efforts to streamline beef processing. Rollins followed up with plans Monday to invest in rebuilding American cattle herds.
Yet the National Cattlemen’s Association called the processing maneuvers a “short-term political fix” that doesn’t help farmers where they need it – a criticism USDA contended was “extremely shortsighted.”
Rollins did not speak to CNN for this story, but a USDA spokesperson said: “Secretary Rollins has unequivocally supported the President’s America First trade agenda,” pointing to recent initiatives and accomplishments on school food, fertilizer production and modernization efforts for ranchers.
The administration’s agenda has significantly reduced the agricultural trade deficit, they said.
As the threat of parasitic flies crept up from the southern border last year, Rollins weighed tapping a company Trump has favored to helm a multimillion-dollar effort to eradicate them.
Currently one of the most effective methods for dealing with New World screwworm is through breeding and releasing millions of sterile flies who mate without producing viable larvae carrying the parasite, thus eradicating the pests.
Before the first US case popped up in a calf in Texas in June, Trump officials balked at the steep costs of building a US sterile fly facility, which were estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a former senior official.
“It was extremely difficult to convince [Rollins and USDA leadership] that we had to get going then, in order to be prepared for what was coming at us,” the person said.
But with Rollins’ guidance, discussions eventually began with a construction company involved in building “Alligator Alcatraz,” last year, according to the source, who had direct knowledge of the matter.
The immigration detention facility was built rapidly and meant to keep up with the federal immigration crackdown but it quickly became a source of controversy with reports of inhumane conditions. Amid mounting legal challenges, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in June that the facility had been shut down.
The company under consideration, which had previously snagged government contracts under both Trump and former President Joe Biden for border wall construction, made an appealing pitch: a speedy $25 million project.
But about six months later, it said it could not build a massive facility to churn out sterile flies quickly, or as cheaply, as initially proposed, according to the official. Officials were also concerned that it could not keep to promised costs and that their plans could raise biosecurity containment issues regarding the genetically modified flies, according to the source.
The USDA did not answer specific criticisms over its consideration of the company and the process but said its response to the screwworm problem has been successful.
“When the first case was identified in Texas on June 3, 2026, many ‘experts’ and media outlets projected major infestations, but instead the plan has been working and as of today, there are only 3 active cases of NWS and 48 total in the USA,” the spokesperson said.
While Rollins announced an intention to build a Texas facility near the Mexican border last June, it was roughly 10 months before there was action. The delay was inscrutable for the agriculture industry and farmers worried about the coming threat, according to two sources familiar with discussions.
“We wasted a lot of time listening to these pitches,” one of them said.
USDA and the Army Corps of Engineers eventually awarded the bulk of the contract to Mortenson Construction in March 2026. Builders broke ground this April. Rollins announced recently that it is seven months ahead of schedule and could open in the spring. It will cost an estimated $750 million.
In Texas, outgoing Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — a Republican who lost a reelection bid earlier this year — has repeatedly criticized what he sees as a slow and inadequate response.
“Instead of using every available tool, USDA moved too slowly and relied solely on a partial solution that takes years to fully implement,” he said in a June statement.
Miller also suggested farmers would be unwilling to report screwworm cases, fearing quarantine of their livestock.
Rollins responded to Miller’s criticism that month, calling his charge “a very unserious comment, from perhaps an unserious ag commissioner with just a few months left,” she said. Though he won Trump’s endorsement days before this year’s election, Miller had been hammered by criticism from Texas politicians including Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, over a series of alleged corruption scandals.
Other Texans who have met with Rollins have had a more tempered view.
Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening told CNN that Rollins began discussions on screwworm within weeks of being confirmed. “I mean, she was also dealing with the avian flu at that time, egg prices were through the roof, and so she was dealing with that,” he said.
“Do we wish it would have been done a little faster? Yeah, but it wasn’t,” he added. “So, you know, at this point, let’s don’t do any more blame game. Let’s just, let’s just do our best with what we have.”
The USDA spokesperson said the agency’s approach “has been to turn over every rock to bring additional production online as fast as possible.”
“All efforts have moved at a breakneck speed,” they added.
Since February, it has released a billion sterile flies along the US-Mexico border as of late last month, USDA has said.
Though Rollins’ critics complain she does not have direct experience with USDA, her farming credentials run deep.
Previously a lawyer, she hails from a farm in a small town outside of Fort Worth, Texas.
In a 2024 podcast interview on the Lou Holtz Show, Rollins — Rollins, then president of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, the think-tank she co-founded with economist Larry Kudlow — recalled winning a hog-catching contest with her sister about a decade ago.
“We had a strategy and a plan, which seems to be a common theme in my life. You always have to have a strategy, and you always have to have a plan,” she told the famed ex-football coach. “We had a plan to wrestle that wild hog — and he was a wild, big hog — and put him into a bag and drag him across the finish line.”
She seems to have taken a similar tack in approaching policy work. Those who have worked with her say she is detail oriented and practical, focused on what building consensus and acting.
Boening, of the Texas Farm Bureau, recalled a meeting Rollins convened last year with 13 Texas state directors.
“She said, ‘I’d like for each of y’all to give me one issue that’s really important to you or to your area,’” he said. “She wrote down every one of those issues, and she went back and addressed them to every person.”
Trump’s team first approached her in 2016 after she had risen to prominence leading the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, rapidly expanding the tiny conservative think tank into a small government, free-market powerhouse.
She would say that it was not “a think tank, it’s a do tank. So she was always focused on practical implementation of ideas,” Devore, who worked with her at the foundation, said.
Rollins joined Trump’s first presidential campaign as an economic adviser just months before Election Day, but resisted a move to Washington when Trump won.
It was not until 2018 that she joined his administration with a mandate to bring ‘the Texas model’ to federal policy.
By 2018, Rollins had ascended to lead Trump’s Office of American Innovation and later the White House Domestic Policy Council, where her career started to circle back to agricultural policy.
Yet despite her longtime loyalties, there was not an obvious place for Rollins in the second Trump administration, two people familiar with internal transition discussions said. She was the last nominee named to a Cabinet-level position when Trump won his second presidency.
“When I had a chance, I said, ‘What about Department of Agriculture?’ I had no idea that she … went to school on agriculture,” Trump said during a speech to farmers this March. “I would have put her there even if she didn’t.”
Rollins has claimed she is unsure “that you could ever find someone that is more pro-rancher, pro-farmer, pro-rural America than this president,” and that Trump has been fully bought in to what she has needed since the start of the administration.
“I walked in the Oval Office and I said, ‘Sir, there is a pretty serious threat to our livestock that’s headed our way,’” Rollins told a Senate committee in June. “And he said, ‘Well, what do you need?’”
Trump, in turn, said Rollins is doing “a fantastic job” and has called her a natural leader.
“Brooke, I always said, could run any company in the world. She could run these big companies. She’s a great executive,” he said during the March speech.
But Rollins has had to get creative with the agency’s budget to cover the many woes that have befallen farmers in Trump’s second term.
Sources previously told CNN that, last year, amid tariff pressures on farmers’ profits, she once burst into the Oval Office to declare that she had found a critical $3 billion in emergency relief.
The administration later announced a $12 billion relief fund.
Another prospective emergency fund is on the table now: Last month, the House passed a relief package – also for $12 billion – that will now be considered by the Senate.
Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, appear eager to finalize a bailout as farmers plan for their 2027 planting season. But with a packed September agenda, including the need to pass a broader federal budget or continuing resolution, its fate remains to be seen.
The relief may not come soon enough for farmers planning their next planting season, said Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union. On top of pressures from the Iran conflict, the US is sparring over trade agreements with Canada, a major supplier of farm equipment.
“These challenges aren’t going to go away anytime soon. It’s going to be well into 2027, maybe even longer before we start to see any kind of relief, and then you throw the tariffs in there,” said Levendofsky. “Farmers are getting squeezed from all sides, just like consumers, everyday people are.”
Trump’s agreement to import beef — amid outstanding questions about where it is coming from — has set off a fresh round of frustration and open GOP concern.
Cattle producers are “increasingly concerned about the unpredictability of the political policy environment,” Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University who studies meat pricing, said. That uncertainty is particularly problematic for an industry where expanding a herd requires a five- to 15-year investment.
“Most people only make multi-year investments if either the economic return looks very lucrative to support the risk or you’re comfortable with a fair amount of limited risk and unpredictability,” he said. Right now, cattle ranchers don’t see either condition being met.
“We’ve got 71 days [until the midterms], and right now we don’t have a positive message to tell farm country,” retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters on August 24. “If you think that providing subsidized beef for some period of time is going to make farmers happy and prices go down on a systemic basis, you’re wrong.”
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Adam Cancryn, Elisabeth Buchwald and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.