A group of farmers walked into the Oval Office last week expecting to smile as the president signed an executive order supporting the popular farming practice called regenerative agriculture, a method cheered by the Make America Healthy Again movement as an alternative to pesticides.
Instead they were greeted by a virtual buzzsaw as President Donald Trump also brought in a top advocate who opposed the policy, prompting a live debate between top advisers, Cabinet secretaries and farmers.
“This was my first experience being this close to where policy was made, and it was really quite surprising,” said Will Harris, a fourth-generation farmer from Georgia who attended the Oval Office meeting.
The roughly hourlong meeting, which ended with the president signing the executive order, provided a vivid illustration of the president’s freewheeling governing style in action. The scramble showed that policy, even when it’s the product of months of work and widely supported among top brass, can face an uncertain fate up until the moment the president puts his thick black marker to the page.
