The king of his Cabinet: Trump’s display of White House power is an ominous sign for democracy

A few minutes into Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, ubiquitous White House guest Elon Musk, stood up and said a few words. Dressed for a Trump rally, or perhaps a trip to a fast food establishment, the shadow president stood in his relaxed “dark MAGA” attire: black slacks, black t-shirt, black jacket and black MAGA baseball cap, and spoke briefly about DOGE and government cuts to the more formally attired Cabinet members. Then he asked if the Cabinet was happy with him.

Trump, who never likes to be upstaged, interrupted his lady in waiting, Musk, to ask the same question, “Is anyone unhappy with Elon?” There wasn’t even a slight pause before Trump added, “If you are, we’ll throw them out of here.”

Naturally, the members of the Cabinet then burst into a round of applause for Musk.

Welcome to Trump Kingdom. All hail the King. You in the back; I didn’t get a harumph out of that guy. (Apologies to Governor Lepetomane and Mel Brooks.)

Trump’s first Cabinet meeting was everything you’ve come to expect from Donald Trump: pandering, applause, lies, smiles, accolades, guest appearances, compliments, wrapped up in a tight package of blaming former president Joe Biden as the cause of everything wrong on the planet. “They spent money like nobody had before,” we were told. And while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the first death from measles in the United States in the last decade, I half expected Trump to blame Biden and the Democrats for that. Otherwise, there was very little substance in Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.

Musk’s attendance shows how quickly an unelected billionaire who wasn’t confirmed by the Senate can take over our government. When the bromance ends between Elon Trump and Donald Musk, it’s going to be loud and nasty. The applause offered for Musk in the Cabinet meeting was enthusiastic on the part of some, perfunctory by others and non-existent in at least one case. Behind the scenes, some members of the Cabinet are not as joyous as they pretend to be about Musk’s attendance, let alone his participation in government. Two senior White House officials told me that they must tread lightly when discussing Musk, or anything else Trump finds problematic. On Saturday, Musk sent an email to millions of federal workers asking, “What did you do last week?” The Trump/Musk twins, or the Musk/Trump partners – take your pick — have given many reasons for the email. Trump told Musk to be more aggressive in cleaning out deadwood in the government and Musk used that as an impetus to send the email and tell government workers they’d be fired on Monday if they didn’t answer it. Some sued, some sent smart aleck responses and some refused to answer the email.

“No one knew about that,” a senior white house official told me. “We are in charge of our agencies, not Mr. Musk. We haven’t even had time to evaluate our staff. You can’t just walk in with a baseball bat and start clubbing everyone.”

The president’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in her weekly briefing on Tuesday that “nobody was caught off guard.” I guess that doesn’t apply to the thousands who suddenly found they could be without a job – not to mention those senior officials I spoke with who also claim they had no idea the email was coming.

All of this is just the latest in Trump’s dictatorial grasp on everything in our government. His party controls Congress, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is in his pocket, as is the rest of the GOP. Trump’s budget, passed by the House late Tuesday, forces deep cuts that could, among other things, mean the end of Medicaid for around 65 million Americans.

According to former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, “The check on an out-of-control executive branch is Congress. But Congress is playing dead. No pushback on the President, no accountability for Musk or Kennedy Jr. No urgency to meet the threats that they pose to this country.”

Meanwhile, during the Cabinet meeting, Vice President  JD “Eyeliner” Vance castigated the press for saying that Donald Trump had conceded to Russia in negotiations regarding the end of the war in Ukraine. Trump himself said in a gaggle on Air Force One that “Russia has all the cards” in the negotiations for peace. That’s one hell of a way to act “diplomatically,” as Vance labeled Trump’s efforts. Trump fancies himself a deal maker. He even wrote a book about it. I apparently missed the part in the book where the “Art of the Deal” includes conceding your opponent has all the cards. 

The press? We merely reported what he said.

That’s the last thing Trump wants. He wants to dictate exactly what we do, say and ask. Earlier this week a federal judge ruled that the Associated Press couldn’t get a temporary restraining order after the company sued Trump for removing its reporters from the White House press pool. First Amendment attorney Ted Boutrous spoke out about that decision:

This is a very unfortunate ruling. It allows the White House to block the AP’s access to major news events for almost another month based solely on the content of its reporting, in violation of the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have repeatedly held that the loss of First Amendment freedoms, even for a very brief time, is irreparable injury that justifies an immediate temporary restraining order

So, what happened next? The day after the judge refused to give the AP a TRO, mostly because the AP waited 10 days to file a suit and then claimed it needed immediate relief to do its job, Trump decided to take it up a notch. His Pet Pep Secretary announced in the White House briefing room that Trump and his staff can and will pick the entire press pool that covers the president Leavitt claimed that Trump wanted to open up the pool to others who don’t normally have access to him. We all know he damn sure isn’t going to pick me, or anyone who will press him on his lies, so it sounds a lot like an NFL quarterback trying to pick who covers him in the defensive secondary.

It’s also disingenuous because Trump already has the ability to interact with people who don’t have access to him through the White House pool system. It’s called The Brady Briefing Room. Any member of the press can cover him there. Trump just has to show up. By the way, most of the pool takes the first two rows of the briefing room. Trump can ignore them and pick anyone standing, anyone in the back of the room or even encourage someone to leave the breakroom and ask him something. That’s how you effectively and honestly open up access. And of course, not one member of the White House press corps mentioned this when the Pet Pep Secretary announced Trump was taking over press pool assignments. 

The fact is that Trump’s gripe about those in the press pool is just a smoke screen to humiliate, belittle and control the press. The press corps failing to point out the obvious remedy to Trump’s disingenuous rant shows that he has succeeded. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued their own response to Trump’s announcement about picking the press pool. Clayton Weimers, the Executive Director of RSF USA said this: 

No politician should get to decide which journalists get to cover them, let alone the most powerful politician in the country, but President Trump keeps opening new fronts in his war on the press. At the end of the day, freedom of the press is about every American's right to access information about their government and their society, so the White House's attacks against press freedom are not just directed against journalists, but against every American's First Amendment rights.

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So, let us recap; Trump runs his Cabinet as if he’s King. He controls the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch of government. He has bullied the press into submission. (In the latest move, Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post continues to kiss his posterior by torching the opinion page in that once proud newspaper). 

Trump has sided with Russia and against our allies in the UN. He is trying to force Ukraine into surrendering and taking natural resources from them in the process while blaming them for having their country invaded by Russia. At the same time, Trump has laid claim to taking over the arts, wants to buy Greenland, take over Canada, Mexico and the Panama Canal. He’s also offered his opinions on how the PGA and the NFL should govern their sports.

As for the Middle East and Gaza, Trump posted “Trump Gaza,” a 30-second video on Truth Social. It is accompanied by music and the lyrics “No more tunnels, no more fears. Trump’s Gaza is finally here.” The video begins by showing devastation in Gaza, then asks, “What’s Next?” in a red, white and blue font before showing us a Trump resort, a golden statue of Trump, a smiling Elon Musk eating hummus, bearded women engaged in belly dancing, Musk throwing money at children and a topless Trump with Benjamin Netanyahu in bathing suits by a resort swimming pool. (You can’t make this stuff up.) A Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill called it “MAGA Porn.”

In the first six weeks of the new Trump administration, he has effectively gutted the government, threatened the world order, threatened government workers, risked plunging us into a recession with all the personnel cuts and eliminated most of the regulations that kept the oligarchs in check.

But, at the same time, he’s offered a $5 million “Golden Ticket” to bring the “right kind of immigrant” to the United States. “This is going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship, and wealthy people will be coming to our country,” he touted Wednesday. He claims this will earn the country a trillion dollars. But, I doubt that he can entice 200,000 rich people to come to the U.S. Not with the way things are going here. Xenophobia is a big deterrent to those who have money. On the upside, I hear you can get 15 percent off at Trump hotels with his Gold Card plus a free subscription to the Washington Post.

But don’t worry. If it all goes south, Trump will just blame Biden, Obama, Clinton, the Democrats, DEI, immigrants and the press — not necessarily in that order.

If you still believe this is a country of, for and by the people then congratulations: You’ve achieved Trump cult status. 

If you are, however, a critical thinker, adhere to logic, science and math as well as being a student of history, then you know the United States of America into which you were born has ceased to exist.

Our former allies in Europe know it and so do our enemies. Trump is making it far more difficult to travel abroad as an American. He’s making it more dangerous to live in the United States and he hasn’t delivered anything but continued divisiveness since he strolled back into the White House grinning like a flatulent Cheshire Cat nearly six weeks ago.

The question is, what will the next six weeks bring?