One of Donald Trump's former staffers was struck by something "highly unusual" that developed during the president's first cabinet meeting in his second term.
The president gathered his Senate-confirmed, top-ranking agency heads around a table, where they remained largely silent as Trump publicly challenged them to speak out against Elon Musk, who has been derisively described as his "co-president," and he turned the meeting over to the tech mogul standing at the opposite end of the table before taking questions from reporters.
"One of the things that you said that [vice president] J.D. Vance didn't get to speak until an hour into the meeting," said Mike Dubke, who served as Trump's White House communications director in early 2017. "Part of that was because the president held a press conference for basically an hour into that meeting, which was highly unusual. Generally, when you have the pool reporters come in, they get five minutes max, and then they all get rushed out by, you know, the White House press folks. He went on for an hour."
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Dubke seemed to play down Musk's role in the administration, saying that he wasn't seated with the cabinet members.
"The other thing I noticed is that Elon Musk did not have a seat at the table," Dubke added. "So all of this, all of this that we're making of him speaking first and all of that, he was sitting in the back row against the wall. I think what we've been talking about globally, and especially in the United States, has been [the Department of Government Efficiency] for the last month, so it makes sense that he was brought in there. It was his special guest and and spoke to the group, so I thought the dynamic was interesting. I thought the long press conference was interesting. I also saw the president interrupt Elon multiple times, so I this was a show of force by the president."
Democratic consultant Karen Finney didn't exactly see things the same way.
"They clearly have their, like, 'bromance' shtick down, right?" Finney said. "They were kind of like, going back and forth, you know, they've been in front of the cameras before. But, look, part of what I was looking at that was interesting is just the power dynamic, because Elon does show up in a T-shirt and jeans and his cap, which, you know, makes me crazy because, you know, at least take off your hat in the West Wing, have some respect in the White House, but part of what he was conveying is like, 'I don't have to play by the rules like the rest of y'all, and I get to be, you know, the tech bro and do my thing,' and so that was sort of interesting."
She also noted that secretaries, when given a brief chance to speak, pressed Musk to explain what he expected from workers in their agencies when he demanded they justify their jobs by listing five things they accomplished the previous week.
"The fact that he did speak first, but also every single one of those secretaries, you could tell based on what had happened over the weekend with the email that went out where people were told [to] 'send the five things,' but then they were told [by department heads], 'No, don't send the five things,'" Finney said. "You know, there was that sort of awkward laughter at one point, and you have to think they were all sort of trying to figure out like, 'Okay, how are we going to deal with this guy?'"
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