When Donald Trump began to speak on Tuesday, during what would become the longest televised Cabinet meeting ever, he did not exactly advertise his plans to make history. There was a lot of the usual Trump palaver about how windmills are “ruining our country” and about the transformative power of his tariffs, which, he insisted, will completely revitalize the American economy. “It’s going to happen like magic,” he vowed. “It’s going to happen without question.” Standard stuff, at least for Trump 2.0, with the President’s top advisers gazing adoringly as Trump vamps for the cameras.

But, in hindsight, the warning signs were there. For starters, it was more than seventeen minutes before anyone else said a word at the meeting, and, even then, the speaker—Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—onl

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