President Donald Trump’s Agriculture secretary seemingly missed the point while defending her suggestion that Americans on a budget should eat a piece of broccoli and a piece of chicken for dinner.
Earlier this week, Brooke Rollins went on NewsNation to propose an affordable meal Americans can make that sticks to new protein-focused dietary guidelines rolled out by the Department of Agriculture.
“We’ve run over 1,000 simulations. It can cost around $3 a meal for a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, corn tortilla and one other thing. And so, there is a way to do this that actually will save the average American consumer money,” Rollins said.
Rollins’ comments were viciously mocked online, with people calling it a “depression meal” and “prison” food.
Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo gave Rollins a chance to defend herself during a Friday morning interview.
“You’re getting heat all over social media for saying that you can eat healthy for $3,” Bartiromo said.
Rollins called the backlash she’s been getting “interesting” as she tried to make the argument that her sad meal suggestion was still better than eating junk food.
“The pushback is probably because the Left, the Democrats, don’t have much more to say other than that. But, chicken, poultry, vegetables, fruits, when you eat healthy, it actually is less expensive, in many ways, depending on what you choose,” Rollins said. “Less expensive than if you buy a fast food meal or if you eat a bag of Doritos or chips and have an energy drink.”
While inflation held steady in December at 2.7 percent, grocery prices remained high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. Uncooked ground beef was up 15.5 percent, and frozen fish and seafood increased 8.6 percent year-on-year.
During her interview, Rollins mentioned an initiative from the Trump administration to give low-income Americans more healthy food options.
“We’re doubling the stocking standard for all of the retailers that take the SNAP program. There are 250,000 retailers across America that take food stamps. We are requiring them to double the amount of healthy food that they stock if they’re gonna keep taking those food stamps, the EBT, the SNAP program,” Rollins said.
This comes after Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act cut back SNAP benefits. Under the bill, nutritional funding, which includes SNAP, will decrease by about $186 billion through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
