There they were, US President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members seated around what seemed like the world’s longest dining table, praising their boss with fervour. It was over two hours of choreographed praise, punctuated by applause, chuckles and claps. All in full glare of the media. I watched the entire live coverage on my phone and felt it was a contest in one-upmanship among Cabinet colleagues, each trying to outdo the other with the most lavish praise for the boss, who, needless to say, was soaking it all in with panache.
If you tuned into Trump’s 100-day Cabinet meeting on Wednesday hoping for hard policy and cold numbers, you may have left wondering whether you had just watched a governance milestone or an elaborately staged reunion episode of a reality show.
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But let me confess at the outset, very few leaders would dare to host a full Cabinet meeting live on television, under the gaze of a roomful of journalists, with the risk of unscripted awkwardness hanging over every sentence. Trump, of course, thrives on this very sort of televised brinkmanship. Over two hours, one Q&A session, several rounds of forced applause and unclear fresh policy initiatives later, the show stood out for one thing – the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief, Elon Musk taking off two hats and declaring, “Even my hat has a hat!”.
President Trump’s billionaire buddy was seated right next to him. He came prepared not with one, but two hats – one labelled DOGE and the other the obligatory Gulf of America lid. Naturally, he wore them both. Stacked. Like a walking metaphor for multitasking or mixed messaging. President Trump beamed. “I love the double hat, by the way. He’s the only one who can get away with it,” he said, as if Musk were a magician pulling policy rabbits out of federal funding hats. No such thing, though.
For his part, Musk didn’t want to be left behind in praising the boss. He insisted, “A tremendous amount had been accomplished in the first 100 days.” The billionaire tech honcho was indeed effusive: “This could be the greatest administration since the dawn of the country,” he declared, presumably including some great presidents in his comparison. Trump thanked him and assured him that “the vast majority of Americans” appreciate his sacrifices – a claim that will surely come as a surprise to many Tesla owners who keep torching their own cars in protest.
Show Some Love To The Boss
Let’s start at the top. President Trump opened the session by declaring that illegal border crossings are down “99.99 percent”, a figure that’s either mathematically miraculous or sourced from the same spreadsheet that once said that Mexico would pay for a wall. He thanked his staff for doing an “amazing” job – amazing being a word so overused during the meeting that it eventually lost its meaning.
From there, it quickly turned into a greatest-hits playlist of Trumpism: immigration crackdowns, deep state takedowns, economic optimism (despite a freshly released -0.3% GDP growth figure), and, of course, a reminder that all woes can still be traced back to Joe Biden, the main punching bag of every Cabinet minister.
Former TV host Pete Hegseth – now somehow Secretary of Defence – is basically what you would get if Rahul Shivshankar or Arnab Goswami were handed the nuclear codes and told to secure the nation. Introduced by Trump with a straight face as “our least controversial member”, he spoke of a “recruiting renaissance” in the military. This, despite the fact that the Pentagon missed its recruitment targets by margins large enough to make you wonder whether “renaissance” had been redefined. Wonder if Hegseth was watching too many TikTok videos of shirtless push-ups or if this was perhaps just a renewed enthusiasm for uniforms on cable news panels.
Dare I remind our readers that Hegseth recently faced criticism for reportedly sharing classified strike information in group chats that included – depending on which leak you believe – his wife, his lawyer, or, possibly, the family dog. But if you believe him, the military is feeling energised. Fair enough. Ask the Houthis in Yemen, who would testify to the defence secretary’s claims.
Next came Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. His remarks were notably brief – perhaps he didn’t want to contradict the gloomy economic mood. “Economic security is national security,” he intoned solemnly, before quickly retreating, stage left. One suspects that even he knew that a shrinking economy doesn’t quite harmonise with the room’s otherwise booming self-confidence.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s Secretary of State, confirmed what many already suspected: foreign policy is no longer about global leadership, multilateralism or diplomacy. It’s now about whether America ends up richer, stronger and preferably with more jets. International cooperation is passe – a relic of the Biden era.
Then came Tulsi Gabbard, now Director of National Intelligence. That’s a sentence that sounds like it belongs in a dystopian novel. She pledged to “hold the deep state accountable”, promised criminal referrals for leakers, and spoke of election integrity with a familiar glint in her eye. Her claims may sound dramatic, but they landed well in a room full of people, who, the Biden supporters would claim, were part of the “deep state” themselves.
Attorney-General Pam Bondi followed with a reminder that not everyone was clapping. Over 200 lawsuits and multiple Supreme Court challenges currently hover over this administration like legal storm clouds. The topics range from immigration deportations to funding cuts and university lawsuits. But there is no need to worry, Bondi assured the room. “We will succeed.”
Vice-President JD Vance took the mic and slammed past administrations for being led by “placeholders” who used an autopen. This was meant as an insult, though it might have sounded like a pitch for more ergonomic policymaking. Vance echoed the now-familiar “Make America Manufacture Again” line, pinning the blame squarely on China – while giving journalists a gentle spanking for focusing on “BS”, that wonderfully elastic, all-purpose term politicians of every stripe deploy when facts get in the way of a good narrative.
And so it ended: two hours and three minutes of applause, loyalist monologues and a smattering of questionably sourced stats. The Q&A session was surprisingly short – either by design or because the journalists in the room had got enough masala already.
A Staged Spectacle
So, what did we learn? Let me try to articulate it fairly. To this author, it felt like President Trump’s 100-day Cabinet meeting offered a glimpse into the signature style of his second term, somewhere between a governance update and a tightly produced prime-time special. Equal parts message discipline and media management, it blurred the lines between policy and performance. Yet, far from descending into chaos, the event unfolded with remarkable stagecraft. Cabinet members delivered their lines with polish, the mood was buoyant, and the President looked firmly in control.
As the cameras rolled and Cabinet members took turns praising the administration’s achievements, the themes were consistent: border security, domestic manufacturing, and “common-sense spending”. The Homeland Security Secretary claimed a 38% drop in illegal crossings at the southern border since January – a figure the administration touted as proof of effective deterrence. The Treasury highlighted fast-tracked deregulation in financial markets, while the energy department boasted about expanded fossil fuel production and new drilling permits on federal lands.
The meeting also showcased Trump’s signature “anti-woke” rhetoric, with education and justice departments both referencing steps to defund diversity programmes in federal institutions and crack down on what the President has described as “ideological capture” of universities and courts. The Secretary of State underlined reassertion of America’s global standing, especially in trade talks with China, which were described as “tough but fair”. Also, Musk, now the unofficial crown prince of tech and government fusion, nodded approvingly from his seat – occasionally adjusting his stack of novelty hats.
Economic Numbers: The Main Spoilers
But the numbers weren’t all celebratory. The quarterly GDP data – released just hours earlier – showed a 0.3% contraction, a sobering economic signal that received only a cursory mention. Treasury officials brushed it off as a “technical blip”, attributing the dip to temporary factors like inventory shifts and weather disruptions. Trump blamed it on the Biden-era mess he inherited. Critics, however, pounced. Senate Democrats accused the administration of “governing by slogan”, with Chuck Schumer quipping that “Make America Manufacture Again” would be more believable if factories were hiring instead of laying off.
Progressive voices were even sharper. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted, “Trump’s Cabinet isn’t a government – it’s a PR agency with a fossil fuel fetish.” Others noted the contrast between the White House’s polished messaging and its legal entanglements, from immigration lawsuits to environmental rollbacks being challenged in court. Former Biden officials dismissed the meeting as “political theatre”.
A Daring Session
Still, for all the cynicism, credit must be given where it’s due. Very few world leaders would risk broadcasting a full Cabinet meeting live. That takes nerve. It’s democracy at its most exposed – messy, unfiltered and vulnerable to mistakes. Things could have gone spectacularly off-script. They didn’t. Even the brief Q&A session – while more of a soft landing than a grilling – added a sense of transparency. And those who remember Trump’s previous such meetings might recall that he took every question until there were none left to ask.
By the time the media was gently ushered out and the last soundbite was delivered, it became clear that the real takeaway wasn’t just what was said – but how it was staged. With hats on hats, lines delivered with perfect timing and Cabinet secretaries acting more like hype men than policy architects, the meeting distilled the essence of Trump 2.0.
Yet behind the spectacle was a genuine attempt at signalling control, direction and message unity. The administration has moved quickly to roll back Biden-era environmental and social policies, expanded border enforcement and reopened energy sectors to aggressive exploration. Trump’s team also pointed to quick gains of tariff increase, progress in trade rebalancing and judicial appointments. Whether these amount to long-term gains or short-term optics remains to be seen, but there’s no denying that the intent is to govern with visibility, if not always with subtlety.
So, whether one sees the event as showbiz or statecraft, or, as is increasingly the case in 21st-century democracies, a blend of both, it was a bold, public-facing moment. And in a time where trust in institutions often hinges on how much the public is allowed to see, perhaps that, more than any press conferences or briefings, is what will be remembered.
(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author