A Cabinet meeting typically affords the president an opportunity to check in with their top advisers and present a competent, unified front for the American public. Under President Donald Trump, however, Cabinet meetings have taken on a noticeably different tone. At the most recent meeting this week, the president sat for hour after televised hour as Cabinet secretaries competed to offer flatteries and assure Trump that his various priorities — both political and personal — were being addressed.
A 'wildly inefficient' meeting for 'any other workplace'
The "three-hour-and-17-minute televised part" of Trump's Cabinet meeting this week was the president's "longest on-camera appearance of his second term," said The Washington Post. During the marathon session, Trump "claimed personal credit" for what he "portrayed as far-reaching changes" to the everyday lives of voters as his "subordinates stumbled over one another to sing his praises." While the meeting stood in "stark contrast" with those of previous administrations, it "bore similarities" with foreign ministerial meetings where leaders have pushed for "strong, personal control over large stretches of national life."
The meeting was an "endurance test of who could praise Trump more," said New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on CNN. Many of the attendees, "including the president of the United States," had other things they could have been doing when the meeting veered to become "not purely about what the agencies' work was," Haberman said. "The lead point was to praise him."
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The Cabinet meeting would have been considered "wildly inefficient" at "just about any other workplace," said The New York Times. But "for an afternoon," the televised meeting showed a Trump administration as "radically transparent as Trump likes to say it is." The session at large was "completely bizarre," said MSNBC's Jen Psaki. By surrounding himself with people who "already treat him like a dictator," Trump's "sycophantic" gathering would have made Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin "blush."
"In the army," said retired U.S. Army Europe Commanding General Ben Hodges on X, "we called this 'butt-snorkeling.'" The spectacle of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer celebrating seeing Trump's "big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor" is "such a disgrace" that a "free citizen of a free country should be ashamed to engage in it," said New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie on Bluesky.
The Trump show must 'go on, and on and on'
The meeting's three hours of "nonstop attention" were "enough" for the president, said the Times, "at least for the day." The flattery heaped on Trump was "so over-the-top as to be — in short doses, at least — entertaining," said William Kristol at The Bulwark. Trump himself offered an "extraordinary performance" during the marathon session, which "went on, and on and on," said Barron's. The meeting was so long that both Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went out of their way to praise the audio and video technicians holding "heavy equipment" for so many hours, said CBS "Face The Nation" reporter Natalie Brand.
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
