ANALYSIS — Donald Trump was feted by his Cabinet on Thursday over a long-awaited deal, saying that only the president could have brokered it. But it wasn’t an agreement to end a partial government shutdown that has no end in sight, and Trump showed little interest in seeking one.
Rather, with their federal agencies and departments running on skeleton staffs and lacking any fiscal 2026 funding, senior administration officials took their turns to hail Trump for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza. Cabinet members put aside decades of bloody history in the region that suggest the Israel-Hamas pact could collapse with the pop of a single rifle round or impact of one rocket.
“Mr. President, I don’t know if, one day, perhaps the entire story will be told about the events of yesterday, but suffice to say, it’s not an exaggeration that none of it would have been possible without the president of the United States being involved,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as the rest of the assembled Cabinet members applauded. “Frankly, I don’t know of any American president in the modern era that could have made this possible, because of the actions you have taken … and because of who you are and what you’ve done and how you’re viewed.”
