Trump administration Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was confronted by CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday about her comments that people should consider raising chickens in their backyards if they want to beat rising egg prices — an activity that is itself expensive and not available to many families in cities or in neighborhoods with rules against livestock.
The president campaigned in part on lowering the cost of groceries, saying everything was cheaper when he was last president — however, since he has taken office, egg prices have soared even further, fueled by bird flu outbreaks and the necessary measures to contain it. These shortages have become so bad that Waffle House even introduced a per-egg surcharge on its menu.
"I'm the ag secretary," said Rollins, who previously served as a general counsel to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, holding up a graph. "I'm really focused on the price of eggs, amongst other things, right now. But what I want to show you in this chart is you can see for 30 years, the price of eggs was pretty stagnant. Then under Obama went up a little bit. That's the first blue. Then under Trump, went down right here, then under Biden, absolutely skyrocketed. So it isn't just avian flu, although that's a driver. It's the cost of doing business. The cost of inputs went up 30 percent under the last administration. We have to deregulate. We have to roll back the rules. We have to make it easier for our producers to produce for America. And that's all part of the same conversation."
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Tapper seized on the opportunity to talk about egg prices, bringing up her recent interview in which she advised consumers wary of egg prices to consider raising "backyard chickens."
"Let's talk about eggs, if I may, just because you brought it up, you wrote in that Wall Street Journal op-ed, 'We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens,'" said Tapper. "Democratic Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer pounced on that. He put on social media ... quote, 'How embarrassing for them. Can't wait to hear Trump's 'chickens in every backyard' riff at tomorrow's speech. This is not a solution.' What's your response?"
"Well, of course, Chuck Schumer would resort to basically poking fun at the average American family who is looking to ensure that they can feed their family, that their children have what they need to perhaps live the American dream," said Rollins. "Tonight, the president ... [will] be rolling out what his vision for America is and how we do restore the American dream to everyone. Listen, the cost of eggs is today's urgent issue. We rolled out a five-point plan last week. It includes biosecurity, repopulating the flocks very, very quickly, deregulating, importing eggs from around the country, and then putting more money into therapeutics and research."
"So we have a plan. Biden never had a plan. And you can see that here," she added, holding up her graph of egg prices upside down and pointing at it. "And you can see that in so many of the other areas that he failed in over the last four years."
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