Rollins touts USDA ‘progress’ in crackdown on SNAP fraud

Administration Rollins touts USDA ‘progress’ in crackdown on SNAP fraud Comments: by Max Rego - 07/15/26 10:38 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Max Rego - 07/15/26 10:38 AM ET Comments: Link copied

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday touted her department’s crackdown on alleged fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

“Within a year-and-a-half, we have found billions of dollars, we’re reaching $10 billion soon, and we’ve made 1,000 arrests,” Rollins told NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich at the annual Hill Nation Summit.

Vice President Vance has in recent months overseen a Trump administration task force geared towards tackling fraud in federal programs. The task force has honed in on SNAP, a program formerly known as food stamps that is federally funded and administered by individual states.

While Rollins noted to Pavlich every Republican governor has cooperated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) fraud crackdown, only two Democratic governors have done so.

The governments of more than 20 Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., meanwhile, are engaged in litigation against the USDA’s changes to SNAP eligibility. The changes, which include the addition of work requirements, were codified under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Trump signed into law last July.

The addition of work requirements for SNAP recipients and removal of certain exemptions resulted in at least 3.5 million people losing access to benefits by February of this year, according to BenefitsUSA.

But Rollins said Tuesday the USDA’s tweaks to SNAP are cleaning up a program rife with an “astouding” amount of fraud overlooked by Democratic and Republican administrations.

“From my perspective, making sure that we’re targeting those who really need the program, and who really just… not deserve the program, but need it as a leg up as a supplemental nutrition program as they’re working toward… a better, high-paying job and the opportunity to not be on those programs,” she told Pavlich, regarding her goals in addressing fraud.

“That’s what we’re focused on,” Rollins added. “And I think we’re making a lot of progress.”