Pool Reports of April 30, 2025

In-town note 1: Gathered for cabinet room

Good morning —

Pool has self-gathered for the cabinet meeting, which is scheduled to take place in the approximately named cabinet room at 1100 ET.

Your pooler is reliably informed that the meeting will be carried live in "all the old familiar places," as the song goes.

Will send further notes when we are heading into the cabinet room and if news warrants.

In-town note 2: Cabinet room

Pool was brought in at 1134 ET.

POTUS began speaking but was interrupted by RFK Jr's quacking phone.

He resumed with a recitation of administration accomplishments.

Spray is ongoing and is being carried live.

In-town note 3: Cabinet color

Cabinet is seated in their customary places with SecState Rubio and SecDef Hegseth on either side of POTUS.

VPOTUS is directly across from POTUS. Each attendee has a paper tag at their place with names/titles except for POTUS, VPOTUS and Elon Musk, who is seated at pool's left/ POTUS' right between DNI Gabbard and SBA administrator Loeffler. His tag just says "Elon Musk."

Musk had been wearing a DOGE hat, then put on one of the many "Gulf of America" hats that have been placed on the table. He later put the DOGE hat back on.

Pool also spotted Homeland Security Secretary Noem wearing the very nice but now-infamous gold Rolex Daytona she wore during her visit to El Salvador's CECOT.

POTUS has finished remarks and is now going around the table so cabinet members can speak, starting with SecDef Hegseth.

Meeting is being broadcast live and is ongoing.

In-town note 4: Musk headwear update

[APP Note: This is the first of two reports numbered "4".]

The world's wealthiest man has been fiddling with his hats. He adjusted the Gulf of America hat he'd been wearing earlier to make it large enough to fit over his DOGE hat and is now wearing two hats, one atop the other. The Gulf of America hat is on top.

USTR Geer just finished speaking and holding up a list of countries current engaged in trade talks.

NSA Waltz talking now.

In-town note 4: Meeting ongoing / more color

[APP Note: This is the second of two reports numbered "4".]

The cabinet meeting continues apace. Homeland Security Secretary Noem is just finished speaking, accusing prior administration of "cooking the books" on deportation numbers. But she also says people who never reached the US-Mexico border because Mexican authorities turned them around should also count as deportations.

Musk is still wearing both of his hats.

SBA Administrator Loeffler now speaking.

Another horological observation — your pooler spotted Labor Secretary Chavez-DeRemer wearing what appears to be a two-tone (stainless steel and gold) Rolex GMT-Master II "Bruce Wayne" variant.

In-town note 5: Q&A

The speeches have wrapped with SecState Rubio closing out the round-the-table.

POTUS was just praising his cabinet as an "impressive group of people" and joking about rating everyone as "outstanding" instead of ranking them.

Secretary Kennedy is aggressively chewing gum of some variety.

Q&A happening now

In-town note 6: Meeting spray over

Pool was ushered out at 1338 after roughly two hours.

POTUS took several questions, which were live streamed/broadcast.

In-town note 7: Investing event

POTUS entered at approximately 1655. The event is being live streamed and broadcast.

In-town note 8: Investing Color

POTUS is speaking in the cross hall flanked by an Andruil drone model, what appears to be a model of a jet engine, and other products and models of products.

He is rattling off a list of executives and their respective companies' investments in US production, each is standing briefly to a short round of applause for each.

POTUS says the model is of a GE F-110 engine used in fighter aircraft.

He invited GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp to speak.

Remarks are being live streamed and broadcast.

In-town note 9: Members of Congress exit

A group of House members was just rapidly spirited out of the foyer as the CEO of SoftBank was speaking.

Probably not coincidentally, the House is voting at the moment.

In-town note 10: Trump criticizing Jerome Powell

Check against video or transcript:

"Energy prices are down all over the country. Mortgage rates are actually down slightly, even though I have a guy in the Fed, not a huge fan. These are my reviews. Don't tell them I said that with the cameras rocking back there. I mean, you should reduce the energy. Should reduce interest. I think I understand interest a lot better than ever, because they've had really used interest rates. But we should have interest rates go down and be positive, but it's not going to matter that much, because ultimately what we're creating has much more to do with other things, and it does just pure interest rates, but it would be nice for people wanting to buy homes and things."

In-town note 11: Event wrapped

POTUS finished speaking at 1737 and exited as musicians from the Marine Band played "God Bless America."

In-town note 12: Lid!

The White House called a travel/photo lid at 1920.

Enjoy your evening!