White House budget director Ross Vought has been busted doodling on an official government notepad as the year’s final Cabinet meeting dragged on for two and a half hours.
Tuesday’s lengthy White House meeting also saw Donald Trump, 79, struggle to stay awake in between moaning about Somalia, Obamacare, his energy level, Joe Biden, and election theft.
Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, is seen as the architect of the controversial Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term. Part of its goal was to demonstrate how Trump could cut federal agencies, slash budgets and remove employees seen as disloyal to the administration. The president has dubbed Vought his “Grim Reaper” due to his brutal cuts.
On Tuesday, however, his latest project was sketching an idyllic mountain range, complete with trees and clouds on official White House stationery during work hours.
Trump administration troll, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, did not miss the artwork.
On Tuesday, Newsom’s Press Office X account posted their own version of Vought’s Cabinet scrawling, adapting it to read ‘I ❤️ Gavin Newsom’.
Newsom was vocal about Trump meeting with Vought during the government shutdown. In October, his office posted, “Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025. But 9 months in, he has already put 48 percent into action. And now, with his shutdown, he’s all-in, embracing the plan’s disastrous cuts and divisive policies”.
Ahead of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump told each member they would get a chance to speak before warning, “We’re going to go quickly.”
But as a string of speakers said their piece, Trump was caught on camera nodding off and sitting back in his chair while attempting to stay awake and alert.
The 79-year-old did find time, however, to slam a New York Times article that reported on how the aging Trump had significantly reduced his workload in his second term. The president has repeatedly referred to the report since its publication. After the article, Trump fired off a furious post on Truth Social calling the article a “hit piece” and insisting that he was not losing his energy.
During the Cabinet meeting, Trump claimed he was “sharper than I was 25 years ago.” Referencing the Times article, he slipped into the third person to declare, “Trump is sharp, but they’re not sharp.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted Trump was nothing less than engaged during the Cabinet meeting.
“President Trump was listening attentively and running the entire three-hour marathon Cabinet meeting,” she told the Daily Beast in a statement.
“Just go back and watch his amazing final answer in the press conference, where he ripped into the America-Last Democrats for allowing radical Somali migrants to invade our country and steal from American taxpayers,” Leavitt continued.
“This epic moment put an exclamation point on President Trump’s ninth Cabinet meeting of his second term—all of which have been entirely open to the press for the whole world to see.”
Trump’s hand, usually covered in makeup to hide heavy bruising, had two adhesive bandages visible.
The Daily Beast has contacted the OMB and the White House for additional comment.
The Cabinet meeting also saw Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked for an embarrassing typo on his placard, which said he was the “SSecretary of War.”
Once again, Newsom hinted the typo was close to the SS, the Nazi paramilitary operation.
