President Donald Trump held his first cabinet meeting at the White House, turning the event into a question-and-answer session that stretched for over an hour.
President Donald Trump convened the first Cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday, gathering all his top officials and answering questions for approximately an hour.
The US President highlighted his administration’s efforts to drastically slash the size of the federal workforce, his mineral deal with Ukraine, tariffs on the European Union, Gold Cards, entitlement programmes, among other topics.
After an opening prayer sermonised by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner – thanking God for President Trump – Elon Musk spoke to the reporters and cabinet members, delivering a passionate defence of his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
ELON MUSK OPENING ACT
Wearing his signature black “Make America Great Again” cap and a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Tech Support", Musk was the first adviser to speak at the cabinet meeting, after Trump’s introduction.
“I actually just call myself humble tech support here because, as crazy as it sounds, that is almost a literal description of the work that the DOGE team is doing: helping to fix the government computer systems,” Musk said.
He then pivoted to DOGE’s more controversial functions - laying off workers, slashing federal spending, combing through vast amounts of government data - defending the entity's controversial actions, saying the overall goal is to cut the deficit, and warned if cuts aren't made the country will "become de facto bankrupt."
He added that he was “confident” that DOGE could find “a trillion dollars in savings”. As of fiscal year 2024, the US government spent $6.75 trillion.
He acknowledged, however, that it will make mistakes: "But when we make mistakes, we'll fix it very quickly," Musk said.
“One of the things we accidentally cancelled very briefly was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention, so we restored the Ebola prevention immediately,” he added.
When Musk was asked by a reporter if any Cabinet members were unhappy, Trump interrupted.
“Is anybody unhappy with Elon?” Trump said to the group, many of whom started laughing.” If you are, we’ll throw him out of here. Is anybody unhappy? They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this,” as members started applauding.
CONTROVERSIAL E-MAIL THREAT
As part of the effort to reduce the federal workforce, Musk announced on Saturday that federal employees were required to submit an email detailing a five-point list of their accomplishments from the past week.
The directive came with a strict deadline of Monday, with Musk warning that failure to comply would lead to termination.
The announcement immediately sparked confusion and backlash within the government, with some agencies advising employees to disregard the directive entirely. Eventually, officials backed away from the Monday deadline.
However, Musk has since doubled down on his stance, writing on his social media platform, “Subject to the discretion of the President, they [federal employees] will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Musk raised unfounded speculation at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that employees who do not respond may be dead.
“I think that email perhaps was misinterpreted as a performance review, but actually, it was a pulse check review,” Musk said, chuckling. “Do you have a pulse? Do you have a pulse and two neurons? If you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email.”
THE GOLD CARD
President Trump continued to advance the proposal of the creation of a “Gold Card”, the US$5M alternative to the EB5 visa programme which would not only give immigrants the right to live and work in the US, but also serve as a fast track to citizenship
“It’s sort of a green card plus, and it’s a path to citizenship,” Trump said.
“It will sell like crazy”, the President predicts, as his administration takes steps towards monetising the US immigration system.
“I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We’re going to pay down a lot of debt with that,” Trump said.
Trump also speculated that the influx of wealth from the “Gold Cards” would also bring job creation to the US economy.
“I will tell you, the people that can pay $5m, they’re going to create jobs. They’re going to spend a lot of money on jobs. They’re going to have to pay taxes on that, too,” he said.
TRUMP CONFIRMS ZELENSKYY’S VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Trump confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday, following earlier speculation about the trip.
He stated that the visit would include the signing of a broad minerals agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine, though details of the deal remain unclear.
"We’re doing very well with Russia-Ukraine. President Zelensky is going to be coming on Friday. It’s now confirmed, and we’re going to be signing an agreement,” said President Trump, referring to the minerals deal with Ukraine.
“We’ll get our money back”
According to Trump, the agreement would help the U.S. recoup funds provided to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion three years ago.
“We're going to get a lot of money in the future, and I think that's appropriate because our taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill,” he said. “It’s all been worked out.”
Zelensky has described the agreement as preliminary and expressed interest in securing additional deals, including U.S. security guarantees to deter further Russian aggression.
When asked about potential future security assurances for Ukraine, Trump dismissed the idea, insisting that responsibility should fall to Europe instead.
Trump signaled the United States will not be providing much in security guarantees to Ukraine -- a key factor for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in any agreement to bring the conflict to a close.
"Well, I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much," Trump said. "We're going to have Europe do that because it's in you know, we're talking about Europe is the next-door neighbor, but we're going to make sure everything goes well."
Trump later said the mineral resources deal between the U.S. and Ukraine will be "automatic security" because the U.S. will be investing in the nation, suggesting that would be a barrier to Russia.
"Nobody's going to be messing around with people when we're there," Trump said. "And so we'll be there in that way."
PRESIDENT TRUMP STATES PUTIN WILL MAKE CONCESSIONS
President Trump indicated for the first time that Russia's Vladimir Putin may have to make concessions. "Yeah, he will. He's going to have to," Trump said of Putin.
The US President did not explained what those concessions would be.
When later asked what concessions Putin would have to make, Trump used the question to pivot. Instead of answering, he once again blamed Ukraine for starting Russia’s invasion by seeking to join the NATO military alliance.
“NATO, you can forget about it. I think that’s probably the reason the whole thing started,” Trump said.
TARIFFS ON THE EUROPEAN UNION
Trump reiterated his commitment to imposing tariffs on foreign countries as part of his economic strategy, specifically targeting the European Union. He claimed the EU had burdened the U.S. with billions in debt and was originally formed to "screw the United States."
“We’ve made a decision and will be announcing it very soon. It’ll be 25%, generally speaking, and that’ll apply to cars and all other things,” he said.
"They've really taken advantage of us," Trump said of the EU. "They don't accept our cars. They don't accept essentially our farm products. They use all sorts of reasons why not."
Trump also confirmed that tariffs on Mexico and Canada are set to take effect April 2nd.
However, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested that another delay could be possible, depending on efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking and improve border security.
“If they can prove to the president they’ve done an excellent job,” Lutnick said.
Trump quickly interjected, adding, “It’s going to be hard to satisfy. April 2, the tariffs go on," he said. "Not all of them but a lot of them. And I think that's gonna be amazing."
MEDICAID AND SOCIAL SECURITY TO BE LEFT UNTOUCHED
Trump promised that his administration will not make cuts to entitlement programmes like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—a promise that comes after House Republicans passed a budget blueprint that includes plans to slash $880 billion over a decade from federal health and energy programmes.
“We’re not going to touch it,” Trump said when pressed on whether he could guarantee Medicare, Medicare, and Social Security would not be touched.
"I have said it so many times ... This won't be read my lips anymore. We're not going to touch it".
ON TAIWAN-CHINA
President Trump declined to say if his administration would move to prevent China from taking Taiwan by force.
"I’d never comment on that — I don’t comment on anything, because I don’t want to ever put myself in that position," he said.
“And if I said it, I certainly wouldn’t be saying it to you [addressing the reporter who asked the question], I’d be saying it to other people, maybe people around this table, very specific people around this table,” Trump added.
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According to government sources cited by Tokyo-based Kyodo News, Japan is exploring the acquisition of US military transport aircraft—believed to be C-17s—for its Self Defense Forces.
The escalation of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced the closure of 2,594 schools, impacting the education of more than 1.1 million children, according to a government statement issued by the Education Ministry on Wednesday.
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According to government sources cited by Tokyo-based Kyodo News, Japan is exploring the acquisition of US military transport aircraft—believed to be C-17s—for its Self Defense Forces.
The escalation of violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced the closure of 2,594 schools, impacting the education of more than 1.1 million children, according to a government statement issued by the Education Ministry on Wednesday.
China's securities regulator has moved to clamp down on U.S. stock listings by small homegrown companies amid concerns that many of these firms have been used as vehicles for price-rigging, inflicting significant losses on U.S. investors, according to the Financial Times.
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