← Videos · Elections & Governance

Trump Hosts His First Cabinet Meeting, Feb. 26, 2025

February 26, 2025 · The White House · 1:05:45

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump hosted the first cabinet meeting of his second term at the White House on Feb. 26, 2025, carried on the White House channel. HUD Secretary Scott Turner opened the meeting with a prayer. The President announced that Ukrainian President Zelensky was confirmed to come on Friday to sign a very big agreement on rare earths and other things, thanking Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for putting it together, and put the figures, as he stated them, at probably $350 billion from the United States against $100 billion from Europe.

On government efficiency, the President said DOGE had cut billions and billions of dollars and that the goal might reach a trillion dollars, bringing balanced budgets within reach. Elon Musk, invited to speak, called himself “humble tech support,” described the DOGE team fixing old government computer systems that do not communicate, and defended the federal-employee email as a “pulse check review” rather than a performance review. In closing questions, the President said he was not stopping the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, citing fentanyl deaths.

Why it matters

The first cabinet meeting is the administration’s first full-team on-camera session: the Ukraine minerals agreement announced for that Friday, the DOGE mandate stated to the cabinet itself, and the tariff position restated, each in the participants’ own words.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the Ukraine rare-earths agreement announced here for signing that Friday, and the DOGE savings goal as stated at this meeting (billions cut; a trillion-dollar goal) - flagged for the scoreboard editors; the entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Hosts First Cabinet Meeting, Feb. 26, 2025” (YouTube, 2025-02-26) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.