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Brooke Rollins

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
See mentions of this person in podcasts
483 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And I'm always happy to help because obviously I think we thought Donald Trump was going to be more conservative than Hillary, but no one really knew, right? He'd been a Democrat very early, not very long ago.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And I said, but yes, if anyone calls and helps, I want them to understand the Texas model, what we did in cutting taxes and deregulating and the job growth that happened and how it helped poor people the most, going back to my original idea of going to seminary. And so he won. I was on that economic team. I was not interested in coming to D.C. or the White House. I told the team that.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And I said, but yes, if anyone calls and helps, I want them to understand the Texas model, what we did in cutting taxes and deregulating and the job growth that happened and how it helped poor people the most, going back to my original idea of going to seminary. And so he won. I was on that economic team. I was not interested in coming to D.C. or the White House. I told the team that.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

They said, what would you like to do? You were on the team when a lot of people weren't. And I said, no, no, no, I'm going to stay in Texas and help. Then I got a call from my now very good friend, but then at the time didn't know him, Jared Kushner, who said, whatever you're doing, this is about six months into term, year one of term one. What is that thing y'all are doing in Texas?

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

They said, what would you like to do? You were on the team when a lot of people weren't. And I said, no, no, no, I'm going to stay in Texas and help. Then I got a call from my now very good friend, but then at the time didn't know him, Jared Kushner, who said, whatever you're doing, this is about six months into term, year one of term one. What is that thing y'all are doing in Texas?

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

You know, criminal justice reform, deregulation, tax cuts. I mean, whatever, all of the great things you've done, that's sort of, can you come just talk to me about how you did it? And so I flew up to D.C. and flew up again and flew up again. And he started saying, we really need you in the White House. We want you to build something very similar to what you built in Texas, a

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

You know, criminal justice reform, deregulation, tax cuts. I mean, whatever, all of the great things you've done, that's sort of, can you come just talk to me about how you did it? And so I flew up to D.C. and flew up again and flew up again. And he started saying, we really need you in the White House. We want you to build something very similar to what you built in Texas, a

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

this relentless, super strategic, very intentional policy apparatus that could move things. And I said no. And then I said no again. And then I said no again. And then my family and I finally said yes. And so that's how I ended up in the last white house.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

this relentless, super strategic, very intentional policy apparatus that could move things. And I said no. And then I said no again. And then I said no again. And then my family and I finally said yes. And so that's how I ended up in the last white house.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

Well, it's a much bigger and more interesting story than that, I think. So the final year of term one, I took it upon myself. I sort of anointed myself as the person that would ensure that when President Trump won the second term on November 3rd of 2020, that we would be ready, unlike we were not in the first term.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

Well, it's a much bigger and more interesting story than that, I think. So the final year of term one, I took it upon myself. I sort of anointed myself as the person that would ensure that when President Trump won the second term on November 3rd of 2020, that we would be ready, unlike we were not in the first term.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And so I spent the year with Larry Kudlow, who ran the National Economic Council, Robert O'Brien, who ran National Security Council, and I was domestic policy at that point, and really drove an effort to put together an agenda in the teams that would be ready for that second term.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And so I spent the year with Larry Kudlow, who ran the National Economic Council, Robert O'Brien, who ran National Security Council, and I was domestic policy at that point, and really drove an effort to put together an agenda in the teams that would be ready for that second term.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And so when that didn't happen, and everyone else was discouraged, no one would hire Trump people, it was a very dark time. January 6th happened. In November of 2020, I realized that what I had been blessed to build in Texas what the Trump first White House asked me to help do within the West Wing, that that's what I needed to do on the national scale.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

And so when that didn't happen, and everyone else was discouraged, no one would hire Trump people, it was a very dark time. January 6th happened. In November of 2020, I realized that what I had been blessed to build in Texas what the Trump first White House asked me to help do within the West Wing, that that's what I needed to do on the national scale.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

Never, never thinking for a second at that moment that President Trump was gonna run again, but the whole idea that we had just had four incredible years, that we had a team of people in the cabinet, Trump won, senior staff, Trump won, that finally not only knew how to talk about conservative issues, but knew how to govern. from a free market, America first perspective, and that couldn't be lost.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

Never, never thinking for a second at that moment that President Trump was gonna run again, but the whole idea that we had just had four incredible years, that we had a team of people in the cabinet, Trump won, senior staff, Trump won, that finally not only knew how to talk about conservative issues, but knew how to govern. from a free market, America first perspective, and that couldn't be lost.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

If we lost that team, if we lost that thinking, if we lost that know-how, I didn't know if we'd ever get it back. And the Democrats are really good. The left is really good at government. We, our side is really good at raising families and building business. And so this happens every time that we're put into government.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

If we lost that team, if we lost that thinking, if we lost that know-how, I didn't know if we'd ever get it back. And the Democrats are really good. The left is really good at government. We, our side is really good at raising families and building business. And so this happens every time that we're put into government.

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture | All-In DC

We have a team of people that have the best intentions, but we lose years because we don't know how to run a bureaucracy, how to deconstruct it and how to reconstruct it.