There were some bizarre and telling interactions at Trump’s Cabinet meeting

Trump held a Cabinet meeting today that definitely isn’t supposed to be a distraction from whatever health condition he’s dealing with, and it was not reassuring.

The vibes when you get a crew like this together are simply off the charts. We know who they are in isolation: Hegseth, the walking protein powder commercial; JD Vance, the simple Appalachian boy and Yale-educated former venture capitalist who kinda-sorta wishes his wife would find Jesus; Kelly Loeffler, the multi-multi-multimillionaire who also likes to talk a lot about her “hardscrabble” upbringing; Markwayne Mullin, a word salad liberally seasoned with rage.

But when they all meet up in one room, oh my: what an ensemble cast.

What Cabinet meetings under Trump tend to look like are Fox News panels on acid. Wednesday’s had a little bit of everything — Iran “negotiating on fumes,” Venezuela, Medicaid fraud, Ebola, communists, the supposed corruption of “Elon Omar,” space secrets about “extra-torrentials,” Operation Epic Fury, a fraud where “everybody had autism!” and a lengthy, deeply heartfelt discussion about the necessity of sand-blasting in construction work.

Trump opened in one of his favorite modes, which is to say, the man who insists he is not worried while visibly radiating worry from every pore.

“I don’t care about the midterms,” he declared, after a long summary of his own achievements that led smoothly into a discussion of the war-not-war in Iran.

“They thought they were going to out-wait me. You know: ‘we’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. People understand that they know that very simple — Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I’m doing that for the world,” he said.

What happened last night was a Trump-backed candidate ousted a more generally popular Republican in a Texas primary, meaning the party now has a very real chance of losing to a Democrat. But none of this matters anyway, because in the short term, it looks like a win for Trump, and we’re all about the short term around here.

The sitting president declaring that he outright doesn’t care about the midterm elections, a few months out from those elections, is certainly a choice — but Donald always tells on himself. The bad approval ratings, the numbers that show even his most ardent supporters don’t back him on Iran: they’re clearly preying on his mind. Nested inside the boasting is that tiny heart of insecurity.

Unfortunately, the lack of filter that allows us to hear loud and clear how worried he is about the midterms also prevents him from realizing when to stop talking about the extremely boring logistics surrounding renovations. Like a grandfather lecturing the visibly uninterested grandkids at a cookout, he turned his attention to the Reflecting Pool in DC, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II memorial, Lafayette Park: how he would improve them, the materials used, the granite, the colors they chose for renovations, the special kind of rubber, the industrial-strength foundations. More than once he went into a long aside about sand-blasting. The details went on, and on, and on.

And so we went from “Fox News on acid” to “annual board meeting of a Florida retirement community debating funds on home improvements.” Forty minutes later, he offhandedly said, after a question about Iran, “Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up.”

There were a number of such blink-and-you’ll-miss-it asides in today’s Cabinet meeting that gave amazing insight into this band of lovable rogues and the relationships between them. Turning to Pete Hegseth on his left at the beginning of the meeting, Trump said simply, “He loves war. I don’t like it, but—” and slapped Hegseth’s biceps. It’s extremely hard for Pete to project his preferred persona of Spartan warrior while Grandpa is nudging him and joking about his love of toy soldiers, so he remained stubbornly po-faced during this absurd interaction.

Hegseth had his turn to speak for himself, of course. He launched into an energetic tirade immediately after Trump’s construction ramble ran out of steam.

“When you authorized Operation Epic Fury, just like you talked about with the Reflecting Pool,” Hegseth said, we decided: “We’re gonna do this smart.” Bombs! Planes! Explosions! LETHALITY! “All of this is possible, Mr President, because of the investment you made in this department. Firing on all cylinders,” he added, infomercial-style. Hell yeah! Just like you DOMINATED that pool of reflection, Mr President, we will DECIMATE the Middle East!

“Good job,” said Trump quietly, as Hegseth rounded off his speech with fervor, like Pete was a kindergartner who’d gotten a little carried away. Again, Pete did not smile.

JD Vance was invited to talk about fraud, which he is supposedly solving entirely (phew!) Vance followed his usual pattern: list a number of achievements in his department, take personal credit for all of them, add “I won’t say it’s been fun, but it was important”, and position himself as the long-suffering vessel of all that is righteous and good.

“Congratulations, JD,” said the president. “Be vicious like they are. They’re violent, vicious people. They’re scum.” Words, truly, that evoke the leadership of the greats.

There are people around the table who do not think of themselves in such high-falutin’ terms as JD Vance, and one of them is Markwayne Mullin. Asked by a reporter about Democratic Senator Andy Kim, who was pepper-sprayed by ICE outside a holding facility on Monday, Mullin replied simply that it “shows radical left Democrats’ priorities” when they protest on behalf of “rapist murderers,” especially when, “of all days, they chose Memorial Day” to do it. It’s unclear what connection Memorial Day has to ICE, but Mullin steamrollered on.

“They want their ethnic right food,” he added, about ICE detainees who are on hunger strike, “…but this isn’t a Holiday Inn.” He sees “Antifa signs” outside the facility, he carried on. (Signs?! In an American democracy?!) And if Kim got “spattered with a pepper ball,” well then “I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t have been there.” I don’t know if those are the exact words of the First Amendment, but surely they’re pretty close!

To a final question about Iran, Trump responded that if Iranians don’t sign a deal soon “then the man on my left is gonna finish them off.” This was more Hegseth’s style. He nodded gravely, clearly revelling in the moment. Hegseth himself is going in there, boys! He’s going to personally LETHAL-WARFIGHTER THE WHOLE COUNTRY!!!!!! After all, this man loves war.

“Vietnam lasted 19 years,” Trump concluded. So why’s everyone so concerned that “we’re into it for a few months”?

Watching these people interact with each other gives one the sense that the world’s largest military superpower is now being run according to the conversational rhythms of an agitated man wandering between cable news segments and renovation sites. The president is fixing the lining of the pool and occasionally rearing his head to say he’ll blow up Oman. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t protest. Cabinet secretaries nod solemnly about drones and Ebola outbreaks seconds before the president casually adds that there is such things as aliens. Everyone has to take their turn directly praising Trump as they carefully outline their achievements, making sure they don’t overstep or under step or raise their eyebrows when Donald says something a bit bizarre.

When you see something as strange as this being called a Cabinet meeting, you might feel a little alarmed. You might worry that American leadership is in trouble, or that these people are about to make terrible, geopolitically consequential decisions that affect us all.

But listen: Vietnam went on for 19 years. Now don’t you feel better?