In his first cabinet meeting since returning to office, President Donald Trump delivered a blistering critique of the state of the country, declaring America had become “bloated, fat, disgusting, and incompetently run.” The former president placed the blame squarely on his predecessor, Joe Biden.
Trump’s remarks, reminiscent of his original “Make America Great Again” rhetoric, were in response to a reporter’s inquiry about potential cuts to the federal workforce. The president likened his approach to staffing changes to billionaire Elon Musk’s sweeping layoffs at Twitter (now X).
A reporter pressed Trump on whether a new wave of federal layoffs would be mandatory, asking, “You mentioned you’re interested in doing another round of this email. When would you like to see that? What would be the deadline? And this time, would it be mandatory?”
Trump responded, “I think Elon wants to, and I think it’s a good idea because, you know, those people, as I said before, they’re on the bubble. You got a lot of people that have not responded. So we’re trying to figure out. Do they exist? Who are they? And it’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired. And if that happened, that’s okay, because that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Following Trump’s directives, the Office of Personnel Management issued an order on Saturday requiring all federal employees to submit a list of five tasks they completed in the past week. The directive, which bars employees from including classified information or external links, set a strict deadline of Monday at 11:59 p.m. EST, as reported by Mediaite.
Elon Musk, a staunch supporter of Trump’s workforce reduction strategy, reinforced the mandate in a social media post: “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
During the meeting, Trump continued his attack on Biden, blaming him for issues such as inflation and what he called the “green new scam,” saying, “He just left office. I think he’s a disgrace. What he’s done to our country by allowing millions of people to come into our country like that and all of the other things—inflation, which he caused because of energy and stupid spending to spend hundreds of millions, trillions and trillions of dollars on the green new scam, a total scam.”
Trump’s remarks quickly sparked backlash across social media, with many critics turning his words against him. One user mocked, “Is Trumputin describing himself? Because that sounds a lot like him.” Another quipped, “‘This country has gotten bloated, fat, disgusting, and incompetently run,’ says the bloated, fat, disgusting incompetent (incontinent) who’s running the country.”
As Trump’s administration pushes forward with sweeping policy changes, his latest comments have only fueled controversy, igniting a fresh round of debate over his leadership style and rhetoric.