Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins revealed the Trump administration has removed almost 6 million people from food stamps in just 18 months — slashing enrollment from 43-44 million down to 35-36 million through an aggressive fraud crackdown on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Rollins detailed the effort during an exclusive appearance on “The Alex Marlow Show,” explaining how USDA reassigned the team that downsized the department by 20,000 employees to root out waste in the federal food assistance program.
“WE HAVE NOW MOVED ALMOST 6 MILLION PEOPLE OFF OF SNAP IN JUST A YEAR AND A HALF. WE’VE GONE FROM 43, 44 MILLION TO RIGHT OVER 35, 36 MILLION.”
The secretary said SNAP fraud exploded under Biden, with program spending jumping 40 percent during the last administration. “More and more people got on food stamps,” Rollins said. “There was no checking of whether, you know, they were working or trying to find a job. There was no checking on their means. There was no checking on whether they’re driving Lexuses or, you know, Range Rovers, which a lot of them are.”
Rollins called SNAP “a fully federally funded program” where the federal government “just hand[s] that money over to the states, and there’s no accountability.”
On her first day in office, Rollins sent letters to all 50 governors demanding cooperation. “I walked in and sent a letter to every governor and said, ‘We’ve got to change this. This is not red or blue. We’ve got to work together and uncover,'” she explained. “The American taxpayer just is owed better, as are the families that really need this program that is being stolen.”
Republican governors signed on immediately, and several Democratic governors joined the effort. The results stunned even USDA officials.
In one state alone, investigators found 250,000 people using dead people’s Social Security numbers to collect benefits. They also uncovered “hundreds of fancy cars” registered to names receiving SNAP.
“I took the Doge team, the Elon team that came into USDA to help us rightsize, and we did,” Rollins said, referring to the workforce-reduction squad inspired by Elon Musk’s efficiency push. “We shrunk USDA by 20,000 employees about a year and a half ago. Once that work finished, I pivoted them to this work, and what they have been able to find and uncover is remarkable.”
“WELFARE TO WORK, NO MORE ILLEGAL ALIENS, AND NO MORE FRAUD. I MEAN, THIS IS WHAT THE PRESIDENT PROMISED THE PEOPLE.”
The fraud sweep aligns with Trump’s campaign pledge to restore integrity to federal safety-net programs. By requiring work checks, means testing, and citizenship verification, USDA transformed SNAP from a Biden-era free-for-all into a program targeted at Americans who actually need help.
Rollins credited bipartisan cooperation at the state level but made clear the federal crackdown came from the top. Host Alex Marlow asked what USDA is doing to identify fraud — Rollins pointed to SNAP as the poster child, noting other Trump officials are finding similar waste in housing, Medicaid, and Medicare.
The 6 million removals represent a nearly 20 percent reduction in SNAP enrollment in 18 months — one of the largest integrity sweeps of a federal benefits program in modern history.
