The NYT summary of Trump's cabinet speech

He had been essentially out of public view for a week, so when he convened his first cabinet meeting of 2019, he seemed to be releasing some pent-up demand to be heard.

  NYT

A captive audience. I've been wondering when he's going to do another rally to get a fix.

A wall, he said, would stop the flow of heroin into the country, and it would stop human trafficking.

Stop the flow of heroin into the country? What an imbecile.

There are “probably” 30 million to 35 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, he speculated, and they cost the government $250 billion, which “would pay for the wall.”

(Government and independent analyses have estimated there are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and one of the highest estimates for costs of illegal immigration — a criticized study from an anti-immigration group — pins the figure at $116 billion.)

Not to mention the obvious: A wall isn't going to keep them out if they're already here.

The wall, though, had the advantage of history.

“The wheel, the wall, some things never get old,” Mr. Trump said.

[...]

Drones and other technology, he argued, had more limited capacity. “I know more about drones than anybody,” he said.

That goes without saying. He knows more about everything than anyone.

The president noted that he had endorsed Mr. Romney for the Senate, and Mr. Romney, in turn, had praised him “profusely.” Then Mr. Trump added that Mr. Romney’s words might not play well in Utah, where the president said he is extremely popular. (Mr. Trump is probably less popular in Utah than almost any largely Republican state.)

[...]

One by one, the president called on select cabinet members for their contributions to border security. One by one, they responded by praising their boss.

We've seen that story before.  At his first cabinet meeting.  Kiss the ring.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, applauded his leadership on border security. She was followed the acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, who saluted the president for giving up his Christmas and New Year’s holidays “while some members of Congress went on vacation.” Rick Perry, the energy secretary and a former governor of Texas, also praised the president, saying he had been rebuffed on border security from the Obama administration. “You’re standing up and saying don’t come,” Mr. Perry said.

Not to be outdone, Vice President Mike Pence noted that he, too, stayed in Washington over the holidays. Then he, too, piled on the compliments: “I want to thank you for the strong stand you have taken on border security.”

Oh my. Pence is signaling very hard there. He knows Trump has turned on him. Publicly putting the lie to Trump's self-pitying tweet that he was all alone was a pretty bold move. Will he actually challenge Trump in 2020? Probably not, so I'm guessing he's counting on Trump being out of the running. At any rate, he knows he's going to be dropped from the ticket if Trump does make it to then, so no use trying to carry water for him any longer.

In case, like me, you never watched the series, that poster is a "Game of Thrones" allusion.  It's right in front of Trump, but pointing directly at Mike Pence.

Trump was still stinging from criticism over his decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. [...] One rebuke in particular, from Mr. Mattis, seemed to prompt the president to issue some criticism of his own.

“How has he done in Afghanistan? Not good. I’m not happy,” Mr. Trump said, before adding, “I wish him well. President Obama fired him and, essentially, so did I.” (Mr. Mattis resigned in protest, and Mr. Trump initially characterized the retired Marine general’s departure as a retirement.)

Besides, he said, Russia learned how costly and fruitless a foreign war can be after “they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan” even though it had good reason to invade the country “because terrorists were going to Russia.” (The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, beginning a “decade-long attempt by Moscow to subdue the Afghan civil war and maintain a friendly and socialist government on its border,” according to the State Department.)

In 1979, nobody was talking about fighting terrorists.

Mr. Trump then misleadingly claimed that Mr. Obama gave Iran $150 billion and $1.8 billion cash. (The first figure refers to a high estimate of frozen Iranian assets released by the Iran nuclear deal — not a check cut to Tehran — while the second refers to a payment of a debt owed to Iran.)

Unprompted, the president responded to a recent poll in Europe that Mr. Romney cited in his op-ed article that showed only 16 percent of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed that the American president would “do the right thing in world affairs,” down from 84 percent in 2016.

Mr. Trump took the low number as a measure of how well he is doing in the United States. “If I were popular in Europe, I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

He later added, though, that he could indeed reverse those numbers. “I could be the most popular person in Europe,” he said. “I could run for any office if I wanted to.”

Ja, sure.

“It would be a lot easier if I just relaxed and enjoyed the presidency like a lot of other people have done,” he said.

At least the Times printed corrections of his lies.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.