President Donald Trump held his first cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday, gathering the newly minted leadership team that is working hard to implement his America First agenda as quickly as possible.
The meeting opened strongly as President Trump invited new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner to lead the cabinet in prayer.
Turner prayed for “my colleagues that are here around this table” to “lead with righteous clarity.” He also thanked God for President Trump’s leadership and the cabinet’s opportunity to lead the country.
President Trump began by highlighting the administration’s decisive successes so far, including plummeting illegal border crossings and the unleashing of American energy “at levels that will soon be reported.”
He invited DOGE leader Elon Musk to say a few words to update the cabinet on what the task force has been doing in terms of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse within federal agencies.
“One of the most important initiatives is DOGE,” Trump said. “And we have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars – we’re looking to get it to maybe a trillion dollars.”
He also emphasized his administration’s goal to balance the budget.
When Musk spoke, he joked that he was the White House “tech support,” because he and his team of experts are literally assisting in repairing government computer systems that he described as “extremely old, they don’t communicate [and] the software doesn’t work.”
Musk said the “overall goal” of DOGE is to cut waste and find $1 trillion in savings. He said “this is not an optional thing, it’s an essential thing,” and explained that the country simply could not be sustained with a multi-trillion-dollar deficit.
“DOGE is a support function for the president and for the agencies and departments to help achieve those savings,” Musk stated.
President Donald Trump also fielded questions from the press during the meeting, and he allowed several of his cabinet members to chime in when appropriate to lend their voice to the conversation.
Trump said he was “impressed with everybody” in the cabinet thus far but again narrowed his focus on cutting the fat from federal programs. He also spoke several times on the importance of ending the war in Ukraine. “We’re right now negotiating very successfully…with Russia and Ukraine,” he said.
He confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would visit the White House on Friday to sign an agreement on raw earth minerals.
On illegal immigration and deportation
On whether activists interfering with deportation operations will face consequences, Trump noted, “A lot of those activists are acting illegally and we’ll give that to our attorney general and she’ll take a look at that very strongly.”
He praised ICE and federal law enforcement for carrying out the nationwide deportation operation. “We want people in our country but they have to come here LEGALLY,” he emphasized.
Iran and China
The president remained firm that Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon. He also refused to announce a position on whether China should be able to take Taiwan.
“I don’t want to ever put myself in this position,” he said.
Instead, he highlighted the importance of China’s business relationship with America and added, “We’re going to have a good relationship with China, but they won’t be able to take advantage of us.”
Tariffs
President Trump said he would not be removing tariffs on Mexico completely because the damage done on their part in allowing illegal immigration to become such a big problem when Biden was in office.
“Millions of people have died because of the fentanyl that comes over the border,” he said. “…The damage has been done, we’ve lost millions of people due to fentanyl.”
The president remained committed to greenlighting such tariffs in April. He also told reporters that he planned to implement a 25 percent tariff on the European Union.
“They don’t accept our cars, they don’t accept essentially our farm products…the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it, but now I’m president,” he remarked.
On Hamas and the hostages
As Hamas continues to return slain hostages to Israel, Trump acknowledged that it was “very sad” what has happened to those people and families. “Israel has to make that decision,” he said, regarding consequences for Hamas.
“Phase one, and now phase two has started,” he remarked.
Accountability for Afghanistan withdrawal
On the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that took place under the Biden administration, Trump noted that if he was in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s role, “I’d fire every single one of them.”
Hegseth noted that the Pentagon, under his leadership, was doing a complete review of everything that happened during the withdrawal in 2021 and promised “there will be full accountability.”
The president also commented that he would like to see the United States’ military equipment that was left there returned to America.
