‘I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much,’ Trump said about Ukraine. ‘We’re going to have Europe do that.’
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump held the first Cabinet meeting of his second administration on Feb. 26 at the White House, remarking on a wide range of topics, including government-shrinking efforts, the Ukraine rare earths deal, and Taiwan.
The meeting, which opened with a prayer by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, also introduced a new press pool managed by the White House. The pool stayed in the room for more than an hour as Trump answered their questions.
Trump discussed ongoing efforts to cut spending and fire workers at multiple agencies, the state of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, plans to continue tariffs on key trading partners, Washington’s stance on China, and a new “gold card” for wealthy visa applicants.
Here are five takeaways from the president’s first Cabinet meeting.
Government-Shrinking Efforts
Elon Musk, whose government efficiency efforts have sparked a media frenzy, was also at the Cabinet meeting to discuss his work.
“We do need to move quickly,” Musk told Cabinet members and reporters.
Achieving a trillion-dollar debt reduction in 2026, he said, requires saving $4 billion per day from now until the end of September.
“We can do it, and we will do it,” he said.
Musk said that the email sent to federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management asking for a bullet-point list of five work accomplishments achieved in the past week had been misinterpreted as a “performance review.”
“It’s a ‘pulse review’ … ‘do you have a pulse, and can you reply to this email?’” Musk said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“What we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond. And some people who are not real people, like fictional individuals.”
The White House on Tuesday said that roughly 1 million federal workers had already replied to the email.
Musk did not say how many federal workers the administration is looking to cut but said, “We wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well.”
By Emel Akan, Jacob Burg and Jackson Richman
