Staff Reports
The Kennedy Center looked less like a liberal echo chamber and more like a celebration of real American resilience on Jan. 29, 2026, when Melania’s black‑carpet premiere drew the First Couple and a number of Trump administration officials to Washington. Cameras flashed as the event underscored a simple truth: conservative leadership knows how to own the narrative and put accomplishments on full display for the country to see.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins didn’t come to the black carpet to play nice with the press; she came to remind Americans that policies which put producers and consumers first actually produce results. Rollins pointed to hard numbers — from swelling trade imbalances to dramatic moves on food affordability — to argue that President Trump’s approach is already outpacing the failures of the previous administration.
Let’s be blunt: Rollins has been unapologetic about reversing bad Biden policies and prioritizing farmers, and that matters to families who fill grocery carts every week. The USDA under Rollins highlighted aggressive steps to tame runaway egg prices and other food costs, and the department reports early, measurable declines in wholesale egg prices thanks to a targeted plan pushed by the new leadership. Conservatives should applaud concrete wins for affordability and rural America.
Of course, the left‑leaning fact‑checkers rushed in to nitpick the framing of trade numbers, because that’s what they do when politicians call out economic failure. Yet even their corrections don’t erase the reality farmers and small towns face: a worsening trade picture and record pressure on farm incomes that must be addressed. Rollins’s point — that America’s agricultural competitiveness was slipping and required immediate action — is what responsible leadership looks like in a crisis.
The mainstream media’s selective outrage about grocery prices under different administrations is a scandal in plain sight, and Rollins rightly called them out for their double standards. When conservative leaders act to bring down costs, the press suddenly remembers to cover the story; when prices rose for years under the prior administration, crickets filled their timelines. That kind of hypocrisy fuels distrust in institutions and makes the case for leaders who answer to everyday Americans, not to editorial boards.
Americans who sweat and save for their families know the difference between rhetoric and results, and Secretary Rollins’s red‑carpet candor is a welcome corrective to four years of economic drift. This administration is moving fast to make life more affordable, to reopen markets for U.S. farms, and to put rural communities back on the map — because patriotism means defending the livelihoods of the people who feed the nation. If the press won’t celebrate those wins, then hardworking Americans will, and they’ll remember who delivered them.
