The Cabinet of Horrors: Labor Day Edition
Trump’s ministers of flattery gather to rename holidays, rewrite history, and award him the Nobel Prize he’s already claimed in his head.
Donald Trump staged what he called a Cabinet meeting this week, though “meeting” suggests deliberation, policy, or perhaps even a sliver of governance. What actually unfolded was a two-hour coronation ceremony in which secretaries and advisers took turns praising the Dear Leader with all the subtlety of a North Korean propaganda reel. It was less Cabinet, more cult revival, complete with miracle tariffs, messianic self-congratulation, and one reporter interrupting to announce that Taylor Swift is engaged.
Trump opened the spectacle like a televangelist hawking prosperity gospel, except the prosperity was tariffs. “We’re bringing in trillions,” he declared. “Inflation is gone, groceries are down, energy is way down, and the auto plants are pouring into the United States like never before.” He added, “NATO, they’re paying five percent of GDP because of me. They never paid before me. They didn’t pay, they laughed at us. Now they’re paying.”
None of this is true. Inflation remains high, grocery and energy prices are climbing, and the U.S. auto industry has been slashing jobs rather than opening new plants. Far from filling the Treasury with “trillions,” Trump’s tariffs have functioned as a tax on American consumers, raising costs on imports while generating only a fraction of the revenue he boasts about. And NATO nations are not paying five percent of GDP toward defense, the longstanding target is two percent, and only a handful of allies even meet that. Trump’s “five percent” figure exists only in his imagination, like the auto plants supposedly sprouting across the Midwest or the tariff rebate checks he keeps promising to hand out like Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.
