At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Donald Trump’s performance “seemed right out of the Kremlin playbook,” @sbg1.bsky.social writes. What did he reveal about his Administration’s true plans?
— The New Yorker (@newyorker.com) August 28, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Feels like a media vibe shift… Susan Glasser, Peter Baker’s wife, at the New Yorker, “The Sycophancy Must Be Televised”:
When Donald Trump began to speak on Tuesday, during what would become the longest televised Cabinet meeting ever, he did not exactly advertise his plans to make history. There was a lot of the usual Trump palaver about how windmills are “ruining our country” and about the transformative power of his tariffs, which, he insisted, will completely revitalize the American economy. “It’s going to happen like magic,” he vowed. “It’s going to happen without question.” Standard stuff, at least for Trump 2.0, with the President’s top advisers gazing adoringly as Trump vamps for the cameras.
But, in hindsight, the warning signs were there. For starters, it was more than seventeen minutes before anyone else said a word at the meeting, and, even then, the speaker—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—only managed a “Yes, sir” before Trump resumed speaking. No one else said anything of substance after that for another fifteen minutes, at which point the President called not on a member of the Cabinet but on Iris Tao, a reporter for the Epoch Times, a far-right news organization linked to an exiled Chinese opposition movement. “I heard you were very savagely mugged in the city,” he said, inviting her to recount the episode. She did so, recalling a terrifying incident of a man in a ski mask striking her in the face with the butt of a gun, and concluded with profuse thanks to the President for his decision to send in federal troops to fight crime in Washington. “Thank you for now making D.C. safer,” Tao said. “For us, for our families, for my parents, on behalf of my parents, and now my baby on the way. Thank you so much.” This is what passes for journalism these days at the White House, now that Trump’s staff has taken control of the formerly independent press rotation and started deciding on its own which news organizations get access to the President. The Kremlin press pool could not have played the moment any better.
As for Trump, his performance, too, seemed right out of the Kremlin playbook. As the meeting dragged on, I remembered Vladimir Putin’s tradition of a marathon annual press conference, in which he holds forth on matters as varied as street cleaning and the perfidy of the West. Putin’s all-time record for one of these appearances, set in 2008, was four hours and forty minutes, so I guess there is still something for Trump to aspire to. In the end, Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting clocked in at three hours and seventeen minutes, which, if it did not beat Putin, was still significantly longer than “The Godfather,” as was quickly noted. (Can you imagine the Rotten Tomatoes score if audiences were actually forced to watch Tuesday’s meeting in full?) The first Cabinet member to be called on, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., did not get to speak until more than forty-eight minutes had elapsed. The first questions to the press did not come until nearly two and a half hours in.
There is a strong argument to be made for not wasting time with what followed. We already know that this live-streaming President is addicted to his own show; of course, he’ll let it run as long as possible. As for the rest, it’s hardly a revelation that Trump’s fellow cast members are so desperate for a bit of his airtime—and approbation—that they’ll say anything to get it. Besides, it’s been a week with so many other truly extraordinary developments emanating from the Trump Administration, “a Watergate every day,” as the author Garrett Graff put it. Does another Trump talkfest actually rate?…
With so many truly existential threats to the democracy unfolding during what is supposed to be the final vacation week before the post-Labor Day rush, it seems almost wrong to get worked up watching a hundred and ninety-seven minutes of Trump and his team of “butt-snorkelers,” as the retired Army General Ben Hodges memorably called them.
When the doctors confirm that Grandpa is dying, his loving relatives indulge his penchant for long, rambling monologues. His disenchanted employees, however, start circulating nasty rumors!
It’s Tasteless to Speculate That Trump Might Soon Be Buried on Red Square Like Lenin
www.thedailybeast.com/its-tasteles…— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics.bsky.social) August 29, 2025 at 4:17 PM
David Rothkopf, at the Daily Beast:
… There’s a lot of talk about a subject that is pretty taboo. Maybe not on your higher-class TV news shows. But certainly on social media and in private settings.
I’ve even had the conversation with former cabinet-level government officials and other respected thought leaders who are household names. They all speculate about it. They have been since Trump’s first term. But the—whispered—chatter has become much more common in recent weeks.
The Drudge Report led with it recently. Among the stories on its home page this week was one from The Wrap talking about how “Trump’s health problems pose challenge for news media.” Another noted California Gov. Gavin Newsom calling out the strange bruise on Trump’s hand and how he has been covering it up…
Here at the Daily Beast, there has been reporting about “the president’s health crisis” and how talk of it is triggering the White House. About how the White House has had “disgraced” former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson (in lieu of current staff or anyone qualified, for that matter) declare Trump “the healthiest president this nation has ever seen.”
Which, given Jackson’s track record, probably means Trump is headed for the ICU—or worse…
What’s more, recently, our not historically super spiritual president has indicated that he’s been thinking about getting into heaven. Which certainly suggests that a.) he is contemplating the long-awaited epilogue to The Art of the Deal and b.) winning the Nobel Prize is not the only ludicrous Trump dream that is certain to go unfulfilled…
Of course, speculating about whether the president is dying—or making jokes about it—as happens on the web and in virtually every conversation I have with virtually every person I know of virtually every political stripe from virtually every part of the world is wrong. Terribly wrong. There is nothing funny about it. Nothing secretly satisfying. The whole social media meme about the wild parties people would hold should Trump shuffle off this mortal coil any time soon is appalling…
Trivia Man
I wish reporters would ask people more often. I don’t expect any Republicans to answer… but make them deny it, talk around it, tell an obvious lie, or something.
Trivia Man
A simple, “Mr Trump! Do you think JD is ready to be president?”
Jackie
@Trivia Man:
PERFECT! Let’s see which, if any reporters have the brass to ask!
Baud
The media wanted someone to put on a show.
prostratedragon
No Claudius in sight.
pat
So when the idiot who has done the most to destroy our government and our place in the world and our lives finally dies we shouldn’t celebrate??
Craig
@pat: There’ll be swinging, swaying, records playing
Chacal Charles Calthrop
hey, is this an open thread?
Because I have a question for the hive mind
Anne Laurie
@pat: Check your snark meter — that line was clearly sarcastic.
(We’re all having trouble telling sincerity from snark, these days… )
RaflW
Nope. We should attack JD Vance, Speaker Johnson, and Leader Thune. Nonstop blast. Unseemly levels of verbal firepower, coupled with brutal video supercuts of his stumbles and their sycophancy. Blame them (truthfully!) for propping up a sick and failing man to the detriment of the US of A.
It’s what Republicans would do to us.
Usually I don’t advise the “do their dirty shit” thing. But this one, when it comes, is the exception that proves the rule.
Teresa
I will definitely smile, feel relieved and thank the Universe for removing another rotten creature from the planet.
Had Trump wanted respect, he would have been a much better man.
Jay
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
Traditionally, unless stated otherwise by the Front Pager, all threads are open.
pat
@Anne Laurie:
Ahh, the Daily Beast. OK, maybe it’s time to go to bed….
Anne Laurie
Is the title of the post ‘Saturday Night Open Thread’?
BlueGuitarist
@Craig:
Dancing in the street!
TheronWare
Butt snorkelers?! Ahahahahahahahaha!!
piratedan
its so infuriating to watch the press be blissfully satisfied with the reports of the President’s health, the economics of the country when they can’t be used as cudgels against Democrats.
Makes me want to own a national media empire just so I could fire all of these worthless wastes of space.
kindness
When I first heard the rumors that Trump was about to kick the bucket, I started polishing my dancing shoes. I’m ready!
Soprano2
@Baud: I agree that they talk to him the way you’re told to talk to dementia patients. You’re supposed to live in their world and not argue with them because it’s useless. That’s bad when it’s the president being treated that way.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Anne Laurie: all is saw was “Sad Commentary”…
So I spend the day helping someone move, without looking at my phone (but the ringer is on, no-one calls or texts), and around 6pm check my email to see: an email from Amazon asking me to rate my conversation with an agent (wait, what?), another email from Amazon ordering some expensive ($138) bit of tech gear sent to: 18590 SW Snowglade Dr., Beaverton, OR 970007 (I know no-one in Oregon), and a third email saying it had already shipped even though it had only been ordered at 2pm.
So I tried to shop the shipment but it was already on the truck. of course I’ve triggered every fraud alert they have, changed passwords etc., but too late… it was duly delivered by 6:25pm.
Any thoughts from the hive mind what to do now?
asked re open thread because this is obviously personal
Chetan Murthy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: for sure you dispute the charge with your credit card company and don’t pay it. Amazon should also not be trying to make you pay it. It’s fraud.
Chetan Murthy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: do you use two-factor authentication with your Amazon account? I use a Yubikey.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Chetan Murthy: i certainly thought I did, but I suspect that the “agent call” was to stop Amazon from texting my phone as well as to change the address.
Never heard of Yubikey, though, let me look into it
Chetan Murthy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Now I’m wondering if, more generally, you have two-factor authentication (2FA) on all your critical accounts. I have it on:
(a) my mail
(b) amazon
(c) github
(d) investment accounts
(e) bank accounts
there’s probably other things, but I forget. And by 2FA is meant
I don’t like the latter (to easy to hack), but there’s at least one of my accounts where that’s what they do. They -do- support an app, and if you install the app, then it uses your fingerprint to unlock the authenticator. I should switch to that.
But generally speaking, you need to have more than your password for every account that matters in any way. And especially for your email, and any recovery emails, that are associated with any of your financial accounts.
Another Scott
From the first quote block:
(I shouldn’t let stuff like this get to me while I’m trying to relax before bed. Grr.)
This statement is disingenuous at best.
We know that 47 demands attention. We know that includes in his televised “cabinet meetings”.
Some of us remember the Dear Leader You’re So Dreamy Thank You For Being So Awesome cabinet meeting of June 12, 2017 (8 page .pdf transcript).
It’s malpractice for anyone by C-Span to cover this live and in full. It’s nothing but propaganda, and we’ve known this is what he does for 8+ years now. There’s no surprise, there nothing “newsworthy” about him droning on on live TV for hours. Stop feeding his narcissism and poisoning the mind of the public by covering this as if it is fine and normal.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Amazon accepts returns and refunds with mostly no questions as to why. Fraud is accepted as a valid reason for return. At least in my experience. This is one of the times actually calling Amazon is beneficial.
JoyceH
The thing we need to understand about the Trump administration is that they are entirely performance. All politicians need to be able to perform- if you have the greatest ideas in the world, it doesn’t matter if you can’t sell it to an audience. But for most politicians performance is only part of the job. With Trump and his minions, it’s the whole thing. If you do something and the cameras didn’t capture you doing it, it might as well never have happened.
Previous administrations were capable of grabbing people off the streets and whisking them to a “black site” where they’re never heard from again. Trumpies are all “secret sites?! What’s the fun of that!” So they’ll make their black sites in the glare of publicity, give tours of the tented kennels, send ICE ICE Barbie down to cosplay the Bitch of Buchenwald.
This is why the mockery and derision is so important. If people are mocking them publicly, can they really be as powerful as they claim?
XeckyGilchrist
Bracing for a nationwide banjo shortage, it being the instrument of jubilation and all.
Mai Naem mobile
I’ve just been googling trump alive? alternating with trump dead? a few times yesterday and today. Get that in the top ten searches.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep and now we have the Presidency as a reality TV show.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Jackie: I will! But as I have nothing to return I shall see what this will accomplish.
all suggestions as to additional security re Amazon will be warmly received, please don’t hesitate to post.
as for Trump being dead, I remember that the friend I was helping to move said she was checking the news while we were waiting for a red light to see if Trump died. I told her not to bother checking, as the streets around up would erupt in joy if it was reported.
Jay
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
a) check online to see if you were actually charged.
b) check recents on your cell to see if you were actually called.
If a) and b) answers are a no, it’s an email phishing attack
T and I have a pre-paid credit card, with another bank, which is only used for online purchases, and is kept at the minimum and is topped up to make purchases if needed.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Jay: alas I was definitely charged, nothing on my cell, that’s why I think the call to agent disabled my two-factor authentication.
Craig
@JoyceH: the sandwich guy rules! Even though they have no shame it does bug them on some level. Tim Walz really bugged them with Weird, cause they are so weird. That Epoch Times lady?, wtf. Show me the bruise from ‘the gun’. Newsom should have a 15min. ‘cabinet meeting’ where everyone tongue baths him like insanity, then stop it and announce ‘we’re all going back to work for the people of California now. We like to have a 15min. comedy coffee break every once in awhile. Thanks for playing along. It’s fun. I could do this all afternoon, but it would be criminally negligent to my constituents, and really weird’
Jay
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
So, it’s now a) a bank thing, (reverse charges) then b) an Amazon thing. Maybe internal fraud.
Jackie
Too funny!
“He’s definitely not well’: Internet pounces on new Trump pics after ‘dead’ hashtag trends”
Jay
@Craig:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times
While The Onion now has a print edition, it’s subscriber based, paid delivery, (and doing great), it used to be free at drop boxes.
So, did The Georgia Straight in Vancouver, BC, and The Stranger, in Puget Sound, in their day, all great news sources, entertainment, food, etc.
Now, aside from Real Estate hype, the only free “commuter” paper is The Epoch Times. No cell service, data plan used, forgot to bring a book, well, there is The Epoch Times, a sauté of Wingerism mixed with anodyne other news and infotaimnent to read on your commute.
Under recipes, “Brains, Scrambled”.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Jackie: speaking of Bridgette Gabriel . . .
reddit.com/r/agedlikemilk/comments/1n4fw2n/there_is_always_a_tweet_for_stuff_like_this/
There is no limit to the hypocrisy
prostratedragon
An advent hymn, here performed by Louis Armstrong.
Craig
@Chetan Murthy: I got an RFP from a friend/coworkers work email a couple months ago. A little odd, since that’s not our usual work relationship, but she has a wide portfolio, so ok. The Request For Proposal was on a DocuSign for security. Sign in. It wants to 2FA. Yep. But I don’t get the normal layout from Google. Try again. Wants me to log into my account again. Hmm. Use Try Another Way instead of my phone and whata ye know. The authenticator is a Windows machine in St. Pete Russia. BYE. Never got through the 2FA. Changed my password from my other machine. Then changed it again from my phone. Changed it again from the other machine. Google contacted me. Changed to the phone to deal with them. Sorted with Gmail. Mailed my friend. ‘you been hacked’. She took the day off while her company IT people sorted her out. I’m careful and I came close to getting burnt. I trained my 85 year old mum to Do Nothing. Call me about anything suspicious. I have the keys to her Gmail so I can go look at any weirdness. She’s not really much at risk because she’s risk averse and just emails her friends about gossip and meetups, she uses gift cards for any online purchases she rarely makes. I do worry she might get phissed and her friends might not be so careful. She’s a savvy old lady.
Marc
I agree, I’ve called Amazon customer support a few times, and they’ve never failed to come up with some sort of quick resolution or credit back to my card. Last spring, I tried to cancel my Prime Account online and they charged me anyway the next month. A quick call, money credited, membership cancelled (I assume they were sort of ignoring online cancellations in hopes that people would forget).
MagdaInBlack
@Jackie: Man, do not read the comments on the New York Post article they reference. Yikes @ the maga minions.
Craig
@Jay: yeah, I know what it is. I’m just referring to the lunacy of that woman’s story, it’s convenient, obvious attempt to bolster the idea that DC is still a lawless jungle, and the fact that this is the first person speaking at a ‘cabinet meeting’ per The Atlantic piece
Jackie
@MagdaInBlack:
I never read comments from anywhere but here.
And sometimes not here – depending on the subject and where it’s heading LOL!
Jay
@Craig:
the sad thing, it’s not much different than “Pravda on the Potomac’s” coverage or “Ivestia on the Hudson’s” coverage.
Craig
@Jackie: I sometimes read the comments on YouTube of REO Speedwagon clips. There’s usually a flame between Gary Richrath fans and Kevin Cornin fans. The Gary people are so mad that Kevin filed the hard rock off the band and took over. It’s a hilarious subculture. Golden Country-a Gary song- has always been my favorite. They both wrote Ridin The Storm Out, and that’s the only other song I like. Kevin sued a great Punk Rock band that never made money-REO Speeddealer. Kind of a dick move.
sab
@Anne Laurie: The open thread hashtag also too.
No One of Consequence
@pat: Damn straight. Wherever they bury his ass had most advisedly place a sewage treatment facility directly downslope of the resting place. Not even joking.
Used to suggest this if they ever publicize the inevitable location of Darth Cheyney.
-NOoC
MagdaInBlack
French Vanilla ice cream with maple syrup here.
Just sayin’
Tehanu
@pat: But it would be irresponsible not to speculate! A drunk rightwing lady said so, and we should always obey our betters, shouldn’t we?
eclare
@Jackie:
Same here. No comments except for BJ.
prostratedragon
Just sitting here scrolling while watching Detective Story and listening to a Nielsen sonata on the radio, and saw this from Carl Bergstrom:
Link to the article:
Ken_L
These ICE agents are out of control.
Gloria DryGarden
@RaflW: think you’re right. We need to go after the next layer of people. We need to prepare for that.
Gloria DryGarden
Denver and Colorado / nearby folks,
the impromptu meetup is on.
. Sunday sept 7,
2pm til 6 or so
In Sure Lurkalot’s amazing backyard in East Denver,
near S Monaco and Alameda, or Florida
Even though it’s last minute, we hope you can come.
rsvp is helpful so we get enough munchies
I’ll ASK WATERGIRL to make a post about it. You’re welcome to request my email for more details
Shalimar
@eclare: I almost added a comment on an LGM post the other day. Loomis is posting grave visits from England and complained that no one ever sends him money to partake in his hobby anymore. Was going to say that I enjoyed most of his work and would have donated except he banned me from the site under my primary account. He’s not an idiot, though, so I assume he realizes that reduced donations to the site is one of the consequences of constantly trolling his readers and then banning people who get triggered by his assholishness.
Professor Bigfoot
It’s not “dirty shit” when it’s the simple, stone-old truth.
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: He also likes to tell people not to contribute to political campaigns or things like voter registration, that they’re just throwing away their money. It’s not an environment that’s going to put people in a call-to-action mood.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
We’re all having trouble telling sincerity from snark, these days…
I can’t imagine why…
Can anyone else….
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep and now we have the Presidency as a reality TV show.
A really, really bad one. Because it’s a realty show that one, isn’t worth a damn (it’s worth a whole lot of damns – and worse) and two is an extremely bad reality.
Ruckus
@Teresa:
He does want respect. Very badly in fact.
He just NEVER earns it.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
There is another side to this.
It is showing that he really isn’t in any way normal. Now of course if one is worshipping him and believing that he’s the top of the heap it really won’t change that mind in any way or show them what that heap consists of. Pure, absolute _ _ _ _. (that word starts with an S and ends with a T)
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
A really, really, really bad one.
The worst of the worst. Of the worst.