Rollins called screwworm a ‘little pest.’ Last year, she said ‘terrifying’

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNBC on Monday that the new world screwworm is a “little pest.” In the past, she called the parasite “terrifying.”

The discrepancy in messaging before and after the flesh-eating pest was detected in the U.S. offers a window into how Rollins is managing the screwworm threat now that it has reached inside the border. And it shows how the administration is racing to alleviate fears that the parasite could further raise the price of beef amid rising inflation.

Since screwworm was detected in Texas last week, Rollins has hit the airwaves to reassure the U.S. public that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is ahead of the infestation and that it does not pose a risk to the food system. She has also heaped blame on the Biden administration for the spread, arguing that lax immigration enforcement of the southern border helped the parasite move forward.

“The food supply is not at risk. This is not a virus, it’s not a disease, it’s just a little pest, a larvae that lands in a calf’s wound, for example, and it can be treated,” she said on CNBC Monday. “Under the last administration with the massive movement under the open borders policy, the cartels etc., border security, that’s when it began to make its way back up toward America.”

Last September, however, Rollins was more forthcoming about the threat posed by the screwworm in an appearance on Fox News. She was discussing screwworm as it spread north towards the U.S. from Central America.

“At a time when our beef supply is at its lowest already in 75 years … it is really terrifying, prices are very high for that reason, it could take us into even another phase of real compromise of getting good beef at a good price for Americans,” she said. “We’ve got a plan, we’re on it.”

And at a Senate hearing in May 2025, Rollins said screwworm was a “major threat” that would “devastate our cattle industry in this country.”

Rollins on Wednesday doubled down on blaming the Biden administration when she appeared at another Senate hearing, arguing that “we know this development is a serious threat, but it did not catch us off guard.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are jumping on Rollins and President Donald Trump for the screwworm outbreak.

“Under Donald Trump and Brooke Rollins, farmers and ranchers are suffering, and consumers are grappling with record-high prices,” Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Kendall Witmer said. “Trump’s reckless and harmful cuts and his administration’s incompetence have left the U.S.’s food supply vulnerable to outbreaks and risk escalating already high prices for beef.”

Screwworm was detected in the U.S. at a time when inflation is on the march. Inflation rose 4.2%…