00:00Well, coming off of Thanksgiving, moving towards Christmas,
00:06I think it's the season of Thanksgiving.
00:09And two words for me are gratitude and joy.
00:13Gratitude to you for, as Howard said, bringing this team together.
00:18I say a lot, but I'll say it again, that this is like family at this point.
00:23And I don't know that there's ever been an organization like this,
00:26at least a government like this in the history of our country.
00:29These jobs are hard, but the joy every day in getting to fight for America
00:34and save the country is the privilege of all of our lifetimes, I believe.
00:39So thank you for that.
00:42At U.S. Department of Agriculture, the People's Department, Abraham Lincoln,
00:46launched this department in 1862.
00:48But under your leadership, we have finally, again, put farmers and ranchers
00:53and rural America first in the last year.
00:56It's no longer DEI, climate change, sending out money based on the color of a farmer's skin.
01:03It's now about literally putting farmers back at the center of it.
01:08And under the last administration, we talked a lot about affordability.
01:11We'll continue to talk about that.
01:13But under the Biden administration and the destruction of our economy and the cost of inflation,
01:18interest rates for farmers and ranchers went up 73 percent.
01:22Labor went up 47 percent.
01:24Fertilizer went up 36 percent.
01:27Fuel went up 28 percent.
01:29So when you think about the extreme economic strain that a lot of our farmers are under in our farm economy,
01:36these are massive, massive numbers that will take some time to get out from under.
01:42But we've already seen the beginnings of the movement toward more affordable food, housing, fuel, etc.
01:50And that will only continue to trend as we work to solve those issues.
01:54My partners in trade, of course, they do the work.
01:57But I'm constantly talking to them about selling more soybeans, selling more corn, getting more of our products out.
02:03But when we really think about how to solve for this idea that for so long our farmers,
02:08many of them have been farming for government checks instead of moving their product around the world,
02:13these trade deals change that forever.
02:17And it isn't one trade deal or two trade deals.
02:19It's dozens of trade deals.
02:21And so talking about rural prosperity and bringing the golden age back to rural America,
02:27which has been lost for too long, we're going to focus on that next year,
02:30hopefully with our vice president, many of our cabinet members.
02:33But the opportunity to do that under these new trade deals is unprecedented.
02:37And so just putting farmers first or ranchers first, Mr. President,
02:42is such a huge, such a huge priority and an accomplishment of the last year.
02:47The second quick thing is lawfare.
02:49And I know you know this better than anyone in the country.
02:52When a government politicizes and weaponizes their power to go after average, everyday Americans,
02:59well, from you, the top of the heap as president,
03:02but all the way down to the ranchers in South Dakota,
03:05the Maud family who were facing jail time over a fence line dispute that had been in their family for 130 years,
03:13we fixed that.
03:14The family, the Henry family in New Jersey,
03:16who were facing their farm being taken away for imminent domain to give to affordable housing,
03:22we fixed that.
03:23So being able to completely change the trajectory of private property rights,
03:27but especially as it has to do with our farmers and ranchers and our rural communities,
03:31changes everything for our country.
03:33And then the third thing, we have so much great things to talk about at USDA,
03:36but the third thing which became very much a part of the national conversation during the Democrats shutdown,
03:42was SNAP reform, food stamp reform.
03:46When all of America saw what so many of us know and have been working on,
03:51but when you have so much rampant fraud in a program that 42 million Americans participate in,
03:57now a big good piece of news that I hope is written about,
04:00since you became president, about 800,000 of those 42 million have moved off of food stamps,
04:05which is hopefully the plan with better jobs, higher wages, et cetera.
04:09But still, when we found 186,000 dead people or dead people's social security numbers being used,
04:16500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice.
04:21We had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states.
04:24In February of this year, we asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data
04:30to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud
04:35to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them,
04:38but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected.
04:42Twenty-one states said yes, not surprised.
04:44Twenty-nine states said yes, not surprisingly, the red states.
04:47And that's where all of that data, that fraud comes from.
04:50But 21 states, including California, New York, and Minnesota, the blue states, continue to say no.
04:58So, as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply.
05:06And they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer.
05:13As Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40%.
05:21So now as we continue to roll that back.
05:23So the partnership in making America healthy again is also in food stamps, but a lot of what Bobby and I are doing together is really remarkable.
05:31But again, just gratitude and joy for this work. And so, so grateful to you.
05:36The final thing I'll say, a lot of gratitude to Secretary Marco Rubio for wearing his Aggie maroon tie as a reflection of Texas A&M beating Florida handily about a month ago.
05:50So, Marco, I want to thank you and much gratitude and joy in my heart as well. Yes.
05:55I think we also have to say something about China with one of the largest purchases ever in our country, the soybeans.
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