US President Donald Trump opened a marathon Cabinet meeting at the White House with an awkward riff about attorney general Pam Bondi’s looks, before launching into a three-hour-and-16-minute stream of consciousness that lurched from tariffs to artificial intelligence.“I look at Pam. I would never say she’s beautiful, because that’s gonna be the end of my political career,” Trump said, sparking uneasy laughter from around the table. What followed was part monologue, part stand-up routine, as the 79-year-old president shifted from drug prices — confusing Eli Lilly with Johnson & Johnson — to his plan for a “very substantial” tariff on furniture. He claimed to have slashed prescription costs by “1,500 per cent,” praised wife Melania’s new AI initiative as “the new internet, the new television, the new everything all put together in one,” and said his second term didn’t truly begin until he redecorated the Oval Office.Trump also lobbed insults at rivals, calling Illinois Governor JB Pritzker a “slob” and mocking senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s age, while lauding secretary of state Marco Rubio as “born for this job.” Rubio, floated as a future presidential contender, looked visibly uneasy at Trump’s suggestion he should never run for another office again.At other moments, Trump mused about being labeled a dictator — “if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator” — waved around a Meta data center mockup, griped about windmills, and dismissed Russia’s peace talk posture as “bulls–t.” Cabinet members largely played along. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer boasted she had hung a giant banner of Trump’s face on her department’s headquarters. “You are really the transformational president of the American worker,” she gushed.By the time it wrapped, Trump had veered across dozens of subjects — from egg prices to “dirty doors” at restaurants — with one constant: a captive audience willing to applaud, laugh, and flatter their leader.
