It might seem like ancient history, but 30 years ago, many leading Republicans were outraged by the Clinton White House and its efforts to reward major campaign donors. Decades later, a sitting GOP president thought it’d be a good idea to welcome his biggest campaign donor into a White House Cabinet meeting — and allow him to take center stage. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump convened his Cabinet secretaries for the first meeting of his new term on Wednesday, gathering agency leaders who are working to implement his agenda at a spitfire pace — and the billionaire adviser whose work on Trump’s behalf is touching all of their agencies. The group, which included nominees who haven’t yet been confirmed, was joined by Elon Musk, whose early actions to reshape the federal bureaucracy have stoked rancor and unease among government employees, as well as early murmurs of concern among some Republicans in Congress.
The report added that Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretaries — traditionally, some of the most powerful officials in the federal government — spent an hour “as audience members after the president gave the floor to Musk at the top of the meeting.”
The first White House Cabinet meeting of Trump’s first term was ridiculous, not because he ceded the floor to a megadonor, but because members of his team went person by person, offering excessive, genuflecting praise for the president.
John Harwood, at the time with CNBC, said after the 2017 meeting, “Honestly this is like a scene from the Third World.” The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush described it as “one of the most exquisitely awkward public events I’ve ever seen.”
Eight years later, the first Cabinet meeting of Trump’s second term managed to be worse — not because it was more sycophantic, but because it was more undemocratic. There was no reason for Musk even to be in the room, much less force actual agency chiefs to listen to him talk about how impressed he is with a flailing, controversial quasi-governmental “department.”
And yet, the Republican president seemed only too pleased to empower his top campaign donor anyway.
A reporter covering the meeting asked if there’d been any discontent among members of Trump’s team about the scope of Musk’s authority. “Is anybody unhappy?” Trump asked the room, which broke out in applause. “I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled.” Of course, we’ll never know how many applauded out of genuine excitement or out of fear of possible reprisals. In August 2024, then-candidate Trump said during an interview, in reference to Musk, “I’d put him in the Cabinet, absolutely, but I don’t know how he could do that with all the things he’s got going.” Six months later, it appears the Republican has effectively managed to put Musk in the Cabinet nevertheless.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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