Brooke L. Rollins

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture - Suspended $129 million in USDA awards to Minnesota on January 10, 2026

On January 5, 2026, Governor Tim Walz became the highest-profile political casualty of Minnesota's welfare fraud crisis, announcing he would drop his bid for a third term. The stunning reversal came just two days before a contentious January 7 House Oversight Committee hearing where Republican state lawmakers testified that Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison ignored rampant fraud and silenced whistleblowers. Within 24 hours of that hearing, the Trump administration dramatically escalated its response: on January 6, HHS froze $10 billion in child care and family assistance funding to five Democratic states—California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York—citing fraud concerns but providing no evidence of wrongdoing outside Minnesota. A coalition of the five states sued immediately, and on January 9, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian granted a temporary restraining order blocking the freeze for 14 days. Hours later, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced USDA would suspend an additional $129 million in federal awards to Minnesota, prompting Ellison to vow 'I'll see you in court.'

Updated Jan 10

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture - Overseeing 2025 farm aid and trade mitigation programs

Since 2018, U.S. farmers have been repeatedly caught in the crossfire of Trump-era tariff battles, first in the original U.S.–China trade war and now again under a renewed wave of tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico and others. To blunt the damage from lost export markets and depressed crop prices, successive Trump administrations have turned to large, executive‑driven farm aid programs funded through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation, starting with a 12 billion dollar package in 2018 and a 16 billion dollar package in 2019.

Updated Dec 11, 2025