President Donald Trump’s final Cabinet meeting of 2025 was meant to be a routine year-end check-in.
Instead, it turned into a chaotic and often surreal session that stretched more than two hours.
The December 2 meeting has created many viral moments, including the president’s visible drowsiness or his burst of xenophobic rhetoric.
Highlights
- Trump appeared to fall asleep multiple times during the chaotic two-hour Cabinet meeting, fueling concerns about his declining health.
- Trump boasted about a $300 million White House ballroom project, despite his wife Melania’s complaints about constant construction noise.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nameplate was misspelled as “ssecretary of war” while he defended Pentagon strikes amid war crime allegations.
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem credited Trump for “keeping the hurricanes away” despite recent deadly Caribbean storms.
- Trump launched a xenophobic rant against Somali immigrants and Rep. Ilhan Omar, calling them “garbage” and saying they contribute nothing.
Below are the five moments that defined the spectacle.
Donald Trump’s end-of-year Cabinet meeting was a spectacle, to say the least
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Cameras caught Trump appearing to nod off more than once
The day’s most-circulated clips came from the camera trained relentlessly on Trump’s face. His eyes fluttered as he appeared to fall asleep several times, and his eyes actually shut at least once for a number of seconds.
His exhausted appearance came a day after another one of Trump’s late-night posting sprees on Truth Social, with the president sharing 160 posts between 7 p.m. and midnight on Monday.
This is not the first time Trump has been captured falling asleep.
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
During a November event in the Oval Office, the president’s eyes grew heavy, and he closed them for several seconds. Last year, reports showed Trump had fallen asleep in court during his criminal trial in New York.
Trump’s drowsiness followed his criticism of a recent New York Times story that examined his declining health. Trump slammed the story early during the meeting, saying, “Trump is sharp.”
At another point, he said he thinks he is sharper now than 25 years ago.
Melania annoyed with ballroom construction noise
Trump also used the meeting to defend and celebrate his ongoing construction project: the massive new $300 million White House ballroom being built on the site of the demolished East Wing.
The project, which Trump says will be privately funded, has turned the area into an active work zone full of pile drivers and excavators.
“Every time I hear them, I love the sound,” Trump said, before adding that his wife, Melania, is not so happy about it.
Image credits: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
“I wouldn't say my wife is thrilled,” Trump said. “She hears pile drivers in the background all day, all night. They go till 12 o'clock in the morning—day, night, pile drivers.
“‘Darling, could you turn off the pile drivers?’ Sorry, darling. That’s progress,” Trump added.
“But no, we’re doing great. I think it’s going to be the finest ballroom ever built,” Trump said.
He also acknowledged that Melania “loved her little tiny office” in the East Wing before it was torn down, though he claimed she now supports the project.
Officials caught doodling and Pete Hegseth’s nameplate caused confusion
While Trump started off the meeting by telling to the Cabinet members to “go quickly,” hours trickled by with long, obsequious speeches. During one such dragging speech, Budget Director Russell Vought was seen sketching a bucolic scene on his White House briefing papers.
The drawing featured pine trees and fluffy clouds, the sort made famous by TV painter Bob Ross. An arrow pointed toward the sketch for reasons left unexplained.
Meanwhile, another distraction sat right on the Cabinet table.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nameplate introduced him as the “ssecretary of war,” with a double “s” that instantly caught viewers’ attention.
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The error was particularly striking because Hegseth had just praised Trump for renaming the Pentagon the Department of War, something that cannot legally be done without congressional approval.
Kristi Noem thanked Trump for ‘keeping the hurricanes away’
The meeting included praise from several officials, but one remark in particular stood out. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem thanked Trump for “keeping the hurricanes away,” even though deadly storms recently struck the Caribbean.
“You made it through the hurricane season without a hurricane,” Noem said to Trump.
“Yeah,” replied Trump.
“And so FEMA... You kept the hurricanes away, we appreciate that,” said Noem, before discussing resources that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been deploying.
Her comment came as the Atlantic hurricane season ended Sunday, marking the first time since 2015 that a hurricane did not make landfall in the U.S.
Noem’s comments come as the Caribbean was battered by destructive storms earlier in October. Jamaica secured up to $6.7bn in support to fund a three-year reconstruction plan after Hurricane Melissa led to catastrophic flooding and landslides.
Xenophobic rant about Somali immigrants
The meeting’s most explosive moment came when Trump shifted abruptly into comments targeting Somali immigrants. Trump declared that he did not want Somalis in the U.S., claiming they “contribute nothing.”
He also went off on Ilhan Omar, the Somali representative who is a U.S. citizen. Trump said Somalia “stinks” and is “no good for a reason.”
“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said before calling Omar “garbage,” saying, “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
“These are people who do nothing but complain,” Trump added. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing … When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Minneapolis neighborhoods, where most Somalis reside, would see increased deportation efforts this week.
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Very early on in the meeting, Trump also called the issue of affordability a “hoax” that was “started by the Democrats.” He also called Democrats raising concerns about rising costs a “con job.”
However, his Cabinet members were not on the same page, as they repeatedly touted details about how they were seeking to reduce prices nationwide.
Another fiery moment took place when Hegseth was questioned about the Pentagon’s strikes on alleged drug-ferrying boats in the Caribbean.
Image credits: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Earlier this week, a bipartisan investigation into war crimes was launched against Hegseth after reports alleged that he ordered U.S. forces to leave no survivors after a boat strike left two people clinging to the wreckage on September 2.
Hegseth said he “didn’t stick around” for the second strike, and that the admiral in charge of the operation made the final decision to “ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.”
He then slammed the media for false reporting. “This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about ‘kill everybody’—phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything,” he said.
As Trump had started the meeting, he called 2025 “a year that will go down as the most consequential and successful first year of any administration.”