Transcript, Trump’s First Cabinet Meeting, January 21, 2025
Trump cabinet meeting, October 21, 2019. Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour.
Location: Cabinet Room, West Wing of the White House. The president is seated in the middle of a long, oval table, flanked by Vice President Vance and Attorney General Bondi.
Trump to all: “Isn’t this the biggest cabinet meeting ever? Nothing like Biden’s or Obama’s meetings. Susie, what’s first on the agenda?
Chief of Staff Susan Wiles: “Tributes. Let’s go around the room. Tulsi first”.
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence: “I love you, Mr. President, sir, more than marijuana, yoga, and the Bhagavat Gita.”
Trump: “Excellent, now what about you Elon, is your love equal to Tulsi’s.”
Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency: “Mr. President, sir, she names my very deed of love, only falls short. I love you more than X, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and my 12 children, whose names are Techno, X….” [Elon pauses and whispers a question to one of his 20 bodyguards].
Trump interrupts: “That’s enough Elon, go play with your Cybertrucks. [He turns to trade advisor Bob Lighthizer.] “Bob, did you finish that tariff decree?”
Lighthizer: “Yes, Mr. President.”
Trump coughs loudly.
Lighthizer: “Yes, Mr. President, sir! But we have a problem. To offset your elimination of the income tax, we’d have to raise tariffs by at least 50% across the board. That would bring in more than $2 trillion in the first year…”
Trump, musing aloud: “Tariffs, the most beautiful word. I’m a tariff man.”
Lighthizer: “…but in year two, that number would drop in half, and then half again the third year, and so on. By the end of the fourth year of your term, the Treasury would be nearly out of revenue. The problem, Mr. President, sir, is that with taxes that high…
Trump coughs again.
“Lighthizer: “I mean with tariffs that high, American businesses and consumers would stop buying imported goods, so…no more tariff revenue.”
Trump: “My beautiful tariffs. Gone?
Musk shouts out: “We won’t need the money if we eliminate Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, Department of Government Efficiency: “Plus food stamps, FEMA, and the Veteran’s Administration!”
Trump: “Let’s move on to mass expulsion of illegals. Kristi? Steverino?”
Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security: “Down Cricket!” Noem shouts at the puppy by her side, then draws a pistol from her belt and rubs the barrel against the dog’s head.
Cabinet members fall to the floor at the sight of the gun. Trump turns his head and points to a migration chart.
Noem: “Relax everybody, it’s unloaded! Cricket is just being trained.”
Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff: “We’re ready to go bigly with deportation. Aiming for 15 million. Madagascar is a possible destination, but if that doesn’t work, there’s an empty facility in Poland, near Katowice. It has good train service too, and excellent showers.”
Trump: “Wonderful! Is Pam Blondy here?”
Attorney General Bondi: “That’s Bondi, Mr. President, sir.”
Trump: “You’re just my type – you remind me of my daughter Ivanka. Is everything ready with your end?”
Bondi: “Yes, however there’s a problem. We can only expel illegals currently in jail or ordered to leave, and that’s just a handful. The rest need to be in detention prior to hearings. But we only have about 40,000 detention beds…
Miller interrupts: “I propose we build hundreds of concentra…er, detention facilities. I have plans for them right here [he lifts up a sheaf of old, yellowed papers, each stamped with a pair of black lightning bolts and the word ‘Achtung’ in red.]
Bondi: “But there’s one other problem, Mr. President, sir. The cost: Building those facilities, hiring legal advocates and judges to hear the cases, and chartering planes to carry the deportees, not to mention payments to the countries that agree to take them all will cost…[she turns to border czar, Tom Homan, who hands her a piece of paper.] ” We came up with $250 billion, and change.”
Trump: “Scott, what do you think we should pay for the concentra…er, detention facilities?” [The president turns to Scott Bessant, Treasury Secretary.]
Bessant: “I don’t think you should pay more than $210 billion, Mr. Soros, sir…”
Trump coughs loudly.
Scott: “Mr. President, sir!”
Brooke Rollins, Agriculture Secretary speaks up: “There’s one more problem, Mr. President, sir, the farmers.”
Trump: “Yeah, I saw Hamilton. But that Carmen Miranda guy, he’s no Sammy Davis Jr., who was Black and Jewish. They say he was impressive in the locker room too – just reporting what I heard.”
Rollins: “No, not the framers, Mr. President, sir, the farmers. About half of farmworkers are illegals. That’s about a million people. And then there are the H-2A ones, who are allowed to work seasonally, but sometimes overstay their visa, or marry illegals, plus the legal farm workers who are foreign born, usually Mexican, who will get caught up in the sweeps.”
Trump: “Boring. What’s your point?”
Rollins: “Well, Mr. President, sir, we may be deporting more than half the total U.S. agricultural labor force. And since few white…”
Stephen Miller coughs loudly.
Rollins: “Because few heritage Americans want to pick lettuce or herd and slaughter cattle, there won’t be anybody to produce our food, unless we double or triple what we pay. That would mean the cost of a Big Mac would be about 18 bucks instead of $5.69.
Trump: “Would they still be made with two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame-seed bun?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Secretary of Health and Human Services: “Yes, they’ll be just the same, only improved. We’ll be adding raw milk and whale meat, Mr. President.”
Trump coughs loudly.
The whole cabinet says in unison: “YES, MR. PRESIDENT, SIR!”
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