A CABINET OF SYCOPHANTSAround the White House table, the president's team are rivals only for his affection
Last July, I wrote about one of Joe Biden’s last televised Cabinet meetings—a dreary affair at which the president opened by reading from a three- or four-page introduction in large type that had been prepared by aides who covered each page with plastic, perhaps to make it easier, so I thought but did not write, to turn the pages. At last Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting in the White House, television cameras were present and the proceedings were broadcast live and in real time by C-SPAN. I was more than a little curious about the event. I’ve had no direct or indirect contact with Trump, but I knew a great deal about Vice President Dick Cheney when he worked for President George W. Bush. Cheney did not suffer fools. Period. While watching C-SPAN, I recalled being told that, after a testy meeting in his office with a smug four-star admiral, the vice president told his staff with a laugh that he wished there were a trap door under the admiral’s feet and a button within easy reach. Here was a chance, perhaps, to see the president at work. Surely there would be moments of give-and-take with aides and advisors. There were a few questions about relevant issues – he asked Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, about the high suicide rate among veterans. But such substance was a rarity. There was not much to be learned other than the fact the president was perfectly content to let his Cabinet leaders speak without much interruption as long as the subject was his own superb leadership. Inevitably, the event was marked by fulsome flattery and absurd misstatements of fact. But whether or not he’s done so legally or constitutionally, Trump has done a few of the things he said he would do: slash the federal government to a level beyond comprehension; shut down the United States’ southern border; and stem the flow of migrants into the country. It was in part his repeated promise to do so that won him the presidency last fall along with majorities in the House and Senate. America may go off the economic cliff on tariffs, as most serious economists have predicted, but there might be enough time for a mid-course correction. Trump’s foreign policy is a shambles. As of this week the settlement of the Ukraine War he promised seems far out of reach, but the generals there are still talking, even if the political leaders are not. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy may be Trump’s only friend today among the political leadership of Western Europe, and for him there are no friends to be had now in China, but international politics have always been fungible. Current polls show that the American public disapproves of Trump’s tariffs, his brutal new budget proposals, and his use of Elon Musk and his team of punks to dismantle the federal government, but Trump’s poll numbers are much cheerier for him when Americans are asked about his standing against the Democratic Party. The president is still running ahead when matched against any of today’s Democratic leaders. (The Democratic Party’s national approval rating is 27 percent.) How much clearer could it be that the Democrats need a drastic overhaul before the midterm elections? It would be a gift to them if a few of the cowed and terrified Republicans in the Senate could find the integrity to vote against presidential proposals that don’t deserve to become law. The embarrassments peaked when not one republican could find the gumption to vote against the nomination of Russell Vought to be director of the White House’s office of planning and budget. Many of Trump’s initial executive orders calling for drastic cutbacks throughout the bureaucracy were drafted in that office. Vought and Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy for policy and Homeland Security, were the architects of Project 2025, the right-wing outline for today’s unwinding of the federal government and the fanatical drive to rid America of immigrants. During a televised press appearance in the White House last week, the unabashed Miller described the many federal judges who have challenged the administration’s legal view of due process as “communists.” Last week’s televised Cabinet meeting featured plenty of lies and inanities from the members of the Cabinet as they reported to the boss throughout the show. Trump turned first to Pete Hegseth, his beleaguered secretary of defense whom he depicted, amid laughter, as “my least controversial person at the table.” Hegseth, who has been demonstrating how little secretaries of defense have to do with the running of the Pentagon, told the president that he had inherited “a demoralized military that couldn’t recruit [and] that was perceived as weak after what happened in Afghanistan and elsewhere because of Joe Biden.” Since Trump’s election, Hegseth said, there has been “nothing short of a recruiting renaissance. . . . The men and women of America want to join the United States military led by President Donald Trump.” The Associated Press called Hegseth’s recruitment claim “an overstatement . . . missing context. Recruitment numbers for all military branches have been on the rise for the last few years, according to Defense Department data. Experts cite factors such as improving recruitment strategies, increased bonuses, and new prep courses that predated the 2024 presidential election as factors in the change, although they acknowledge Trump’s election could have also played a role.” There is no data to support that assessment, however. Overall, military enlistment was 12.5 percent higher in the fiscal year 2024 than in fiscal 2023. Hegseth, nonetheless, indulged his boss. “We’re going to get 100 percent operational control of the border,” he said. “Our NATO allies know they have to step up. The Houthis in the Middle East are feeling the weight of American power and we’re deterring Communist China. So because of your leadership, sir, I believe we are making the military great again. I thank you.” Another exchange took place with Howard Lutnick, the self-assured billionaire secretary of commerce. Lutnick is an avid Trump supporter who donated at least $9 million to his 2024 campaign. He shares the president’s enthusiasm for giving rich foreigners a pathway to becoming US citizens simply by paying $5 million dollars to buy what the president has called a “gold card” that would replace the existing investor green card visa program that offers foreign investors an option to become permanent residents by investing between $500,000 and $1 million to create or preserve American jobs. Immigration experts have called the president’s plan illegal because only Congress can broaden immigration categories. Nonetheless, the program seems to be going forward, as Lutnick excitedly told Trump, after describing himself as running the “investment accelerator.” Major companies all over the world are committing to investing in America, he said. “They all want to invest in America,” he said. The world’s pharmaceutical industry knows “it’s got to come home because America pays for all the drugs of the world. . . . Autos coming home. Industrial is coming home.” Lutnick saved the best news for last. As he travels around the world, he said, there has been interest in what he called the Trump gold card: “It makes me very popular.” He clearly had the president’s attention. “Last night I was out to dinner and someone came up and said, ‘Can I buy ten? And how do I buy ten? And I’m like, ‘That’s pretty good. That’s fifty million for dinner.’” He continued, to laughter from the president and his fellow Cabinet members: “It’s paying for my dinner.” There was a touch of pathos, too, as soon to be ousted National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said, very simply: “It’s an honor to serve you in this administration, and I think the world is far better, far safer, for it.” Should he have been more fulsome in his praise? Most of the other Cabinet member reports were far more upbeat, and focused on cheering on the president’s goals, whether by cutting back the number of federal employees or eliminating programs deemed excessively woke by the new sheriffs in town. There was the inevitable overzealous flattery about what was repeatedly described as an overwhelming election victory. But of course none of the Cabinet officials could beat the gushing praise from Pam Bondi, the attorney general: “Mr. President,” she said with no sign of embarrassment, “Your first one hundred days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever, ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you. Your directive to me was very simple, make America safe. And despite that, we are still defending over 200 civil lawsuits filed against you on top of everything else . . . and now we’ve got multiple cases in front of the Supreme Court and we will succeed and we are doing great. . . . We have rescinded 200 policies . . . and we are doing everything in our power to keep America safe at your direction.” In a fit of hyperbole, she asserted that Trump has saved 258 million American lives through Fentanyl seizures, but the main thrust of her remarks is that her mission is to do everything possible to prevent the American legal system from working. It’s not a course taught at law school. The Democratic Party must come to understand that Trump’s political success was primarily based on his promise to get tough with immigrants, an issue that has for decades befuddled many Democrats and Republicans in the Congress with good intentions but no politically acceptable answers. It became a legislative nightmare that stumped some of the best minds in the Congress. Trump’s solution was to demonize the immigrant community and blur the distinctions between the millions who have made America a better place and the few who have not. He spoke to a dark side that exists here and won an election by doing so. His Cabinet by and large reflects his vanity and his political ignorance. There may be a surprise as his administration carries on. But the early signs provided by his Cabinet can only be seen as a warning that what we see now isn’t going to get better. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Seymour Hersh, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. © 2025 Seymour Hersh |