Trump treats cabinet to stream of vitriol and untruths – but only when he’s awake

Donald Trump held a big cabinet meeting on Tuesday. It was a chance to turn the page on criticism over his pardoning of a convicted cocaine trafficker and his government’s indiscriminate blasting of alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean. An opportunity to project competence.

The president did not take that opportunity. During the two-hour meeting Trump instead talked about “fourth world war countries” (I think this was something to do with the border, but even rereading the transcript it is hard to be sure), seemingly confused a test designed to detect dementia with an IQ test, and declared Somali immigrants to be “garbage”.

It was an ignominious performance which also saw Trump display his latest trick: the art of falling asleep during public events.

Trump, 79, had his eyes closed at multiple points throughout the meeting, his head drooping down at times before jerking back up. It was particularly noticeable as Marco Rubio spoke, the secretary of state fawning over Trump’s “transformational” leadership before making a weak joke about college football.

It was the second time in a matter of weeks that Trump seemed to fall asleep during a meeting – at a press conference in the Oval Office in November he was seen slumped back in his chair, eyes closed.

While questions abounded about why Trump, who is the oldest person to be inaugurated as president, was quite literally sleeping on the job, the White House had a different take. Trump was “listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon cabinet meeting”, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters.

Leavitt pointed to Trump’s xenophobic rant against Somali immigrants, delivered at the end of the meeting, as evidence of his vigor. During that tirade, Trump said of Somalians: “I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”

Trump called Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman who was born in Somalia, “garbage”, adding: “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

That came after Trump, who made a big deal of the high cost of living during his campaign, claimed affordability was a “con job” and shared a number of false claims about the US economy.

“Our prices now for energy, for gasoline are really low, electricity’s coming down and when that comes down everything comes down but the word ‘affordability’ is a Democrat scam. They say it and then they go on to the next subject and everyone thinks, ’Oh they had lower prices.’ No they had the worst inflation in the history of our country,” Trump said.

“Now some people will correct me, because they always love to correct me, even though I’m right about everything, but some people like to correct me and they say 48 years. I say it’s not 48 years, it’s much more, but they say it’s the worst inflation that we’ve had in 48 years – I say ever.”

That was the theme of the meeting: falsehoods, hot air and repeated gaffes.

If asked, Trump’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics might correct him on inflation. Its data shows that inflation under Joe Biden surged to 9.1% in June 2022, the highest in about 40 years, which is neither 48 years nor “ever”. And the average gas price in the US last week was $3.06, according to the AAA. It was $3.05 a year ago, when Biden was president: it is unclear why Trump insists prices are “really low”.

Later Trump claimed to have gotten inflation to “normal”, ignoring the fact that inflation is at the same 3% rate as when Biden left office in January. Indeed, Trump seemed to struggle with numbers throughout the meeting. Trump claimed to have made “unprecedented deals” to “slash drug prices by 200%, 300%, 400%, 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%”, Trump said.

“Nobody has ever heard of it before,” he added.

There is a reason for that. If a drug cost $10, and its cost was reduced by 100%, that drug would be free. If the cost was cut by 800%, that would mean drug companies would be paying people to take their drugs.

But that was the theme of the meeting: falsehoods, hot air and repeated gaffes.

There was even an unintended nod to the air of incompetence on show, with Pete Hegseth’s job title being misspelled on his nameplate. According to the Trump administration, Hegseth is currently serving as “Ssecretary of War”.

It all meant that an event which was supposed to project expertise and accomplishment achieved the exact opposite: casting the president as a sleepy bigot who isn’t great with numbers.