There was no danger of Donald Trump, 79, taking a snooze at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting—because the president loves the sound of his own voice.
In a marathon 90-minute press conference before the Cabinet got down to business, Trump rambled about 50 different subjects.
And while the topics were different—ranging from lawsuits challenging his White House ballroom project and Kennedy Center renovations, and his views on Supreme Court justices, to his treasured $5 Sharpies—it was largely the same old stuff.
Trump is like the elderly neighbor you have to avoid because he won’t stop talking. Even his sycophantic acolytes were struggling to muster their polite laughter by the end.
But he just kept talking. The stream of consciousness became a tidal wave.
The Cabinet meeting started off with a clear message that America is winning the war. No news there, but Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller had clearly told the children that they needed to stay on message.
The biggest destruction of another country’s military since World War Two. Iran’s Navy decimated. Nuclear war averted. So proud. No mercy. You know the spiel.
JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, and Pete Hegseth duly delivered their jingo lines, keeping them short and suitably subservient. The Secretary of War took a nasty jab at the press, but scorpions can’t help themselves.
Then Trump grabbed the microphone back like Elvis with a fried peanut butter footlong.
And he talked to the cameras, in no particular order, about (deep breath)...
- How safe D.C. is and how he’s going to keep the National Guard there forever.
- How dare they sue him over the White House ballroom?
- How dare they sue him over the Trump Kennedy Center renovations?
- NATO is a bunch of ingrates.
- Pritzker should ask him to send troops to stop crime in Chicago.
- Biden was America’s worst-ever president. The very worst.
- There would have been a nuclear attack if he hadn’t junked “Barack Hussein Obama’s” Iran deal.
- He has solved eight wars.
- He would really like to solve the Ukraine War.
- Sharpies are better than $1,000 White House ballpoint pens.
- What a ridiculous question from the media.
- SCOTUS made a very, very bad decision on...
- Tariffs, but no matter because he’s come up with a good way around the ruling.
- Gas prices will come back down soon enough.
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell is spending too much on his new HQ.
- He built up the U.S. military in his first term.
- Nobody said the markets would be so great in his first year (Dow 50,000/S&P 500 7,000) (He said this twice)
- Chief Justice John Roberts isn’t a Trump fan.
- ICE at airports is doing great.
- He is so popular in Venezuela, and it would be nice for them to erect a statue of him.
- Too many “stupid people” are being allowed into the country.
- He built a really, really long border wall.
- Yes, he used a mail-in ballot in the local Mar-a-Lago district election, but only because he wasn’t in Palm Beach (yes, he was).
- No, the Iranians shouldn’t be allowed to charge ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz (obviously!)
- America’s allies suck.
- The 25th Amendment (Shhh).
- He saved the world from nuclear obliteration.
- He owns the Hispanic vote. (They like me, I like them.)
- Men shouldn’t play women’s sports.
- Democrats have no common sense, but they do stick together (their one big plus).
- What’s the big problem with asylum seekers being deported?
- Trump time—“a day that’s an eternity.”
- King Charles is a friend of mine and will be coming to dinner.
- Keir Starmer is “a lovely man,” but he is no longer a friend.
- “Drill baby drill.”
- Kamela was not good.
- He wouldn’t want Gavin “Newscum” as president because he is a “stupid person” with a “mental disability.”
- He took a cognitive test three times and aced them all.
- “I didn’t think anybody knew Chuck Schumer’s name.”
- Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals.
- Iranians are bad fighters and pretty good negotiators.
- Anybody smuggling drugs by boat is either very brave or doesn’t watch television.
- He has a great expression (pause, struggle to remember). It’s “Never Forget.”
- His favored nation drug policy has sent prescription prices down. And nobody will write about it (sad face).
- We’re slashing regulations and investments are pouring in from abroad.
- We love the farmers.
- But maybe the farmers would prefer to be members of the fake media (!), but maybe not.
- Some presidents are saying they wish they had bombed Iran (no, they’re not).
- Energy prices have not gone up as much as he expected.
- He is getting a new hat, saying he’s right about everything.
There was only one thing missing, and you could sense that the president was reaching back into his blow-dry, trying to remember what it was.
I’m happy to help him out...
Those windmills! He hates them.
