Donald Trump wants to be paid

At exactly 11:30 this morning, carefully selected members of the press were packed into a room rarely seen by anyone outside the president’s closest advisers and invited guests, let alone television cameras broadcasting live to the world. Today was different.

Donald Trump sat slumped forward beneath the Presidential Seal at the center of the long conference table, surrounded by members of his cabinet and those in his inner circle. White rings circled his eyes where his orange makeup hadn’t completely blended. Over the next 57 minutes, Trump repeatedly injected comments that made others in the room not just uncomfortable but genuinely concerned for what he would say next. At one point, when the discussion turned to the International Criminal Court, without any prompting, he blurted out, “By the way, there’s no information that they’re after me.” Before adding, “It could happen.”

Before abruptly ending the meeting and his staff jumping into action to remove the press as quickly as possible, he went on a long outburst declaring, “I was abused. They attacked my house, Mar-a-Lago, where I live... big damages should have been given to me,” before adding, “I probably was abused more than anybody in the history of our country.”

The televised event took place at Camp David, the presidential retreat located deep in the Catoctin Mountains of western Maryland, a place that Donald Trump does not like and only uses when absolutely necessary. He dislikes it to the extent that he once told a reporter, “It’s nice, you’d like it. You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.” Trump has mostly avoided going at all. So the question is not just what happened inside that room today, but why he went to the one place he avoids, on one of the worst weeks of his presidency.

With his approval rating hitting a record low of thirty-two percent, his attorney general nominee being held hostage by members of his own party, and the war in Iran escalating after declaring victory multiple times, Donald Trump needed a way to make reality look better than it was, and he needed to do it at a place of historical significance to make what was said more believable.

The Washington Post framed the meeting as the latest stage for Trump’s frustrations over a series of stalled domestic and foreign policy initiatives. CNN described it as a president under pressure retreating to the woods amid an Iran war without end and polls with no bottom. The Hill called it a particularly perilous time. And the moment this meeting ended, he left for his Bedminster golf club for the weekend.

He opened by declaring, “We are the party of transparency and we believe in transparency.” He told the room, “I don’t believe the press has ever come anywhere near it,” and called the meeting “something very unique.” And then, just a few minutes later, he told the reporters sitting in front of him, “I want to thank a lot of the media people because many of you have been very, very fair, and that’s one of the reasons you’re here frankly.” He admitted that the press was hand-picked for the event. He granted access to the outlets and reporters that cover him favorably, while the reporters who would actually hold him accountable were not invited. The transparency he performed today was not transparency at all.

Towards the beginning of the meeting, Trump set the tone for everything that followed and made it clear that this was about the upcoming midterms and his campaign to retain unchecked power. “The last administration created the worst inflation in 48 years, the most dangerous and insecure border in history, and exploding trade deficits like we have never seen before, rampant crime, men and women sports, transgender mutilization of your children, and chaos and bedlam all over the world.” He paused, looked around the table, and added, “Other than that, they did quite a good job.” Pete Hegseth, sitting to his left, smirked. He didn’t hold back. His goal was for his fanbase to remember that, come November, everything before Trump was a catastrophe, and that everything under Trump is the golden age.

He called the men and women seated around him a “talented group of people,” then looked around the room and added, “Yeah, a couple of stiffs, but that’s okay.” They all laughed. The Associated Press described these meetings as “sessions that have come to be known for being overly long and consumed by administration officials’ endless praise for their boss.”

Barely nineteen minutes in, after handing the conversation over to Vice President J.D. Vance to talk about fraud, Trump was already struggling. His eyes were getting heavy as he fought to stay awake. At the twenty-seven-minute and thirty-eight-second mark, during Hegseth’s remarks, his eyes rolled completely, and he jerked back awake multiple times.

This is the man who holds more power over the world than any other human being alive, and he cannot keep his eyes open while his own advisers speak. And that raises a very serious question. What is happening behind the scenes during the moments that actually matter? When he is deciding whether to launch strikes or start new wars? Is he just nodding off while the people around him do whatever they want?

While his inner circle of enablers was taking turns praising Trump, I was looking at the walls in that room. Of the pictures of past times at Camp David under different administrations. When Jimmy Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt. When Eisenhower met Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War. Where George W. Bush met with his war cabinet after September 11 to plan the invasion of Afghanistan. Some of the heaviest decisions a president can make happened there.

It’s where John F. Kennedy spent weekends with his family, where Franklin Roosevelt gave it the name Shangri-La because he wanted the presidency to have a place where the weight of the office could be carried with dignity and seriousness. Kennedy even mentioned during the meeting that his uncle, JFK, had planned to rename it back to Shangri-La if he had made it to a second term. Camp David is where presidents go when the moment demands uninterrupted leadership and where meetings can be held in confidence. And today it was used for a man slumped at the center of a table while people told him how wonderful he was.

When it was Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s time to speak, he brought up his attack on the International Criminal Court. He called the ICC illegitimate, said it had made itself illegitimate by claiming jurisdiction over non-member states, warned that American servicemen could someday find themselves under indictment, and even threw in a reference to Jack Smith having worked there. Then he pivoted to a recent meeting he attended with sixty other countries in Washington that was held to address “far-left terrorism and violence.” He said that when a bomb goes off tied to a right-wing group, it gets attention, but when it is a leftist group, an “Antifa group,” it gets no coverage. He added, oddly enough, that he does not consider neo-Nazis right-wing, that he considers them Nazis. He attempted to connect these comments together but failed. His goal was to convince the world that the ICC was the opposite of what it actually is so that no international court can ever hold this administration or its allies accountable. His far-left terrorism comments were his attempt at portraying the Trump regime’s opposition as terrorists instead of citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

But the moment that revealed more than anything else was when Trump interrupted Rubio and said, “By the way, there’s no information that they’re (the ICC) after me. It could happen.” The room laughed nervously while he added, “But just so you know, he’s talking about it and saying that means that he’s not trying to defend me. He is trying to defend Bibi (Benjamin Netanyahu) and various other people, but there are many people that shouldn’t be looked at that way. But there is no indication that I’m one of them at this moment.” In that moment, Rubio looked like his soul had left his body.

Then came the anti-weaponization fund question. A reporter asked Trump about his Truth Social post from that morning, which said victims of government abuse should be paid back. Trump launched into a defense of the $1.8 billion fund that would have paid money to the J6 insurrectionists and shielded him and his two oldest sons from tax audits. Trump referred to them as people who “wanted to go to a rally or an event and ended up spending the rest of their lives in horror.” A reporter did get him to admit that the fund was dead. And he added that he wished it were not. “Well, it is dead, but you know, I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused.” He claimed that many had committed suicide, a claim he has made repeatedly but that he has never provided proof. He said their families had been decimated. And then he said it. “I probably was abused more than anybody in the history of our country.” Which means he thinks he was harmed more than enslaved people, those interned in Japanese internment camps, those who were persecuted during the McCarthy period, attacked during the Civil Rights movement, and during the Jim Crow years. I could keep going.

When it was Hegseth’s turn to speak, he attempted to deliver a joke that revealed more than he likely realized. “The flyovers will indeed continue until morale improves,” he said, playing off the old military phrase, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” It was an odd choice of humor, one that implicitly acknowledged what many reports have already suggested: morale inside the Defense Department is anything but high.

A reporter asked Trump how he planned to revive the ceasefire with Iran and get diplomacy back on track. His answer was, “Well, I think we just want to win,” he continued, “We’re doing very well. We’re trying to be as nice as you can be in a situation like that.” And only then did he add, “It’s very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Every person sitting at that table participated in this sham cabinet meeting. Every one of them praised the leader, laughed at his jokes, and clapped for accomplishments that are not real. And when this is over, they are all going to claim they did it for reasons that sound noble. That they were forced to or that they were trying to save the country from something even worse. They will all say that they had no choice. But they did have a choice. They make that choice every single time that they participate in a performance like this. What they are doing is anti-American at its core, and it is not just embarrassing; it is dangerous. No explanation they offer after the fact will be enough to undo what they are choosing to do right now.

What we saw today was just the public-facing spectacle that Trump demands. The Wall Street Journal published an investigation today that showed what is happening behind the scenes. They reported that almost every night in the White House, Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update on which companies and donors have cut checks and which have not, and for how much. He has nicknamed her the “princess of darkness” because she is such a killer with donors, and in calls with companies she has referred to him as the boss, telling them, “The boss wants this money.” Much like the language Mob crime families call the leader of their organizations.

The numbers are staggering. Trump has raised more than $800 million since returning to office. One chairman of a publicly traded company told the Journal that companies understood they were either “checked on a list, or crossed off a list” depending on whether they gave money.

His former legislative affairs director, Marc Short, one of his own people, told the Journal, “There definitely wasn’t a corporate shakedown like you see now.” The same president who ran in 2016 promising he would self-fund his campaign and would never be controlled by donors, special interests, and lobbyists is now running an operation that legal analyst Scott Horton said he could not distinguish from a classic organized crime protection racket. The White House response, through spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez, was that Trump is the most successful fundraiser in modern political history and that “one thing has never changed. President Trump can’t be bought.”

Today also brought an important reminder. There are still limits to Trump’s power. After weeks of insisting that his Reflecting Pool project had been sabotaged, and after his administration went so far as to arrest a former Olympian over the lie, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, one of Trump’s most visible loyalists, was forced to drop the felony case against David Hearn.

The 67-year-old whitewater canoeist had been arrested back in June during a bike ride along the National Mall. He had stopped at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and touched a piece of the already peeling coating. Prosecutors had falsely claimed he had forcefully and violently ripped up sections of the pool floor. The charge carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Today, in a 20-page court filing, Pirro’s office acknowledged that the damage had actually been caused by the contractor’s flawed installation and by the rush to complete the project before the America 250 Independence Day celebrations.

Hearn’s legal team issued a statement on his behalf: “The Trump administration’s case against Davey Hearn should never have been brought. Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

Trump was caught in a lie that could have cost a man 10 years of his life. But the truth broke through, and he didn’t get away with it. One of his own most loyal appointees was forced to admit that none of it was true. And that is what we need to hold onto tonight. Because if the truth can break through there, in a case built by his own Justice Department to cover up his own vanity project, it can break through everywhere. And as long as we keep pushing and demanding better for our country, his lies will continue to fall apart. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: Double puppy picture today. It has been very hot the past couple of weeks, so the pups have been taking a lot of naps and enjoying the air conditioning.

Sources:

C-SPAN: President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting at Camp David

CNN: Trump, under pressure on Iran, takes his Cabinet to the woods

The Hill: Trump approval sinks to 32 percent

Wall Street Journal: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation

Mediaite: Trump has reportedly been demanding companies and donors pay up

NBC Washington: Trump administration drops Reflecting Pool charge against Olympian

CNBC: Pirro moves to drop case against Olympian

CNN: Justice Dept. admits Reflecting Pool renovation was flawed

CNN: Trump muddies Blanche negotiations on anti-weaponization fund

PBS: Trump hosts Cabinet meeting at Camp David

Washington Times: Trump hosts rare Cabinet meeting at Camp David