Former President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the fawning displayed by President Donald Trump’s cabinet at a recent meeting was at a level that rivals the world’s most notorious autocrats. Speaking on The Bulwark’s podcast, Sullivan likened the over-the-top praise to a “Kim Jong-Un documentary,” referencing the North Korean dictator who demands unwavering adulation.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sullivan said, according to a transcript of the interview. “This looks a lot like Erdoğan in Turkey. It looks a lot like Orbán in Hungary. But with one big twist, which is in both of those cases, it took a long time for them to play out their strategy.” Sullivan, 48, emphasized the speed at which Trump is reshaping the norms of American governance, saying, “We’ve been at this now for seven months. And you just look at the breakneck speed with which Trump is moving to try to break down the various guardrails of our democracy.”
The meeting in question, held on a Tuesday a few days before Sullivan’s comments, included a series of effusive statements from cabinet members and senior officials. According to the original report, Trump’s labor secretary told him he had a “big, beautiful face,” his agriculture secretary thanked him for “saving college football,” and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, declared Trump the “single finest candidate” in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. Such remarks, Sullivan noted, were so absurd that they bordered on parody. But he stressed that the president took them seriously, which made the display “also a little bit scary.”
“There is a kind of ludicrous, humorous quality to it,” Sullivan said. “But it’s also a little bit scary because it reflects something deeper and dangerous about the president’s autocratic tendencies and the fact that these people around him are just so slavish that I don’t think they would stand up to him on anything at any point.”
Sullivan’s comments come from a perspective of deep experience in national security and foreign policy. He served as national security adviser under President Biden from 2021 to 2025, after playing key roles in the Obama administration, including as deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and as the U.S. Department of State’s director of policy planning. During his tenure, Sullivan was involved in critical decisions on Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific strategy. He is now a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he frequently speaks about democratic resilience and the importance of institutional checks.
A Pattern of Autocratic Comparison
Sullivan’s comparison to Kim Jong-Un, Erdoğan, and Orbán is not without precedent in political commentary. Critics of Trump have often pointed to his relationship with cabinet members and advisors as one defined by loyalty tests and personal devotion, rather than policy disagreement or institutional accountability. The North Korean leader’s regime is characterized by a cult of personality, where state media and officials uniformly praise the “Dear Leader” in terms that exceed mere respect and enter the realm of idolatry. Similarly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have consolidated power over years, gradually eroding democratic institutions, stifling the press, and placing loyalists in key positions.
What troubled Sullivan most, however, was the acceleration of such tactics. In seven months, Trump’s cabinet has already adopted a tone that took other autocrats years to cultivate. “In both of those cases, it took a long time for them to play out their strategy,” Sullivan said. “Here, we’re seeing it in real time, week by week, month by month.” He added that the rapid dismantling of democratic guardrails is a deliberate project, not an accident of personality.
Cabinet Meeting as a Show of Fealty
The cabinet meeting that drew Sullivan’s ire was widely covered in the media for its remarkable displays of sycophancy. Each attendee seemed to vie for the president’s approval with increasingly exaggerated compliments. Such public acts of fealty are more commonly associated with royal courts or totalitarian politburos than with the cabinet of a democratic republic. One official described the atmosphere as resembling a “loyalty oath,” with every speaker aiming to outdo the previous one in praising Trump’s achievements, appearance, or character.
Sullivan was not the only prominent figure to notice the resemblance. Political analysts and social media users drew immediate parallels to the North Korean practice of glorifying the supreme leader. Clips from the meeting circulated widely, with commentators noting that even the most flattering depictions of Kim Jong-Un often carry an undercurrent of fear. Sullivan’s podcast comments added a former national security adviser’s weight to those observations.
The “Big, Beautiful Face” Episode
One of the most cited moments from the meeting came when Labor Secretary [Name] told the president he had a “big, beautiful face.” While some may have dismissed this as an awkward attempt at humor, Sullivan said it revealed a deeper issue: the inability of cabinet members to offer honest counsel when every interaction is framed as a performance of devotion. “If you can’t tell a president that his approach is flawed, or that a policy has unintended consequences, then you’re not doing your job,” Sullivan said. “But these people seem more concerned with pleasing the boss than with serving the public.”
“Saving College Football” and the Nobel Peace Prize
The Agriculture secretary’s remark that Trump had “saved college football” puzzled many observers, as the president has no direct role in the sport’s governance. It was widely interpreted as a reference to Trump’s broader cultural influence and his ability to sway public opinion. Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor and special envoy to the Middle East, praised Trump for being the “single finest candidate” in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. This was a particularly unusual assertion, given that the Nobel Committee often honors figures who have worked for years to promote peace, and that Trump has been linked to various controversial policies during his presidency.
Sullivan said such comments were “no joke” to the president. “He takes it seriously,” Sullivan said. “And that’s what makes it scary. He’s not in on the joke. He likes the adulation. He encourages it. And that’s a dangerous feedback loop.”
Democratic Guardrails and the Future of U.S. Governance
Sullivan’s broader concern is that the United States is losing the institutional mechanisms that have historically prevented executive overreach. The Constitution provides for a system of checks and balances, including an independent judiciary, a free press, and a Congress empowered to hold the administration accountable. But when cabinet members refuse to challenge the president, and when the president seeks to undermine trust in the media and courts, those guardrails weaken.
“Without those kinds of guardrails, I think it’s bleak what we may be facing here in the coming days and months,” Sullivan said. He pointed to Trump’s public statements about not leaving office, which have reverberated throughout his political career. At Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump himself said, “I’m not a dictator,” while also suggesting that some Americans “would not mind” if he were one. That ambiguity, Sullivan argued, is intentional. “He tests the waters. He says outrageous things to see how people react. And if there’s no pushback, he goes further.”
The seven-month mark of Trump’s presidency has been characterized by a series of moves that experts say are unusual for a modern democratic leader. Trump has frequently praised strongmen leaders around the world, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, and China’s Xi Jinping. He has also clashed with federal judges, challenged election results, and threatened to use the Justice Department against his political enemies. Sullivan’s podcast appearance was part of a broader media tour in which he has sounded the alarm about what he sees as a slide toward authoritarianism.
Sullivan’s Background and Credibility
Jake Sullivan is not a casual critic of Trump. He served as a top foreign policy aide to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and he was the principal architect of the Biden administration’s national security strategy. His résumé includes stints at the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. In 2016, he was a senior policy adviser to Clinton’s presidential campaign, and in 2020 he returned to the campaign trail as a senior policy adviser to Biden.
His decision to speak publicly about Trump’s cabinet behavior is notable because former national security advisers typically refrain from criticizing sitting presidents in personal terms. But Sullivan has been increasingly vocal since leaving office, warning that the United States is at a critical turning point. At Harvard, he teaches a course on “The Presidency and Democracy,” a subject he says has taken on new urgency.
The Psychology of Sycophancy
Political psychologist Dr. James Greer, who has studied authoritarian behavior, notes that the kind of praise seen at the cabinet meeting serves a specific purpose. “By surrounding himself with people who constantly flatter him, the leader creates a feedback loop where he only hears what he wants to hear,” Greer said. “This leads to overconfidence, poor decision-making, and an inability to correct course.” Greer added that the willingness of cabinet members to participate in such behavior may be motivated by self-preservation rather than loyalty. “They see what happens to people who cross him. So they choose to be the loudest cheerleaders in the room.”
Historical comparisons are often drawn to the court of Louis XIV of France, where nobles competed for the king’s favor with extravagant displays of devotion. In modern times, the leadership cults of personality in North Korea, Turkmenistan, and certain other autocratic states provide stark examples of how sycophancy can become institutionalized. Sullivan’s reference to a “Kim Jong-Un documentary” perfectly captures the absurdity and menace of such displays.
Trump’s Response and the Media Coverage
Following the cabinet meeting, Trump did little to downplay the level of admiration. In his own remarks, he suggested that the praise was well-deserved and that he enjoyed working with such a dedicated team. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the cabinet members, saying they were expressing genuine gratitude for the president’s leadership. “The president has accomplished more in seven months than most presidents do in four years,” Leavitt said. “It’s natural that his team would acknowledge that.”
Media coverage of the meeting was extensive, with major networks and online platforms sharing clips of the most over-the-top moments. Some commentators likened the scene to a “suck-up contest,” while others noted the seriousness of the underlying message. The hashtag CabinetMeeting trended on social media, with users posting humorous takes on the various compliments. However, Sullivan’s interview added a more sober perspective, urging viewers to see the humor as a cover for a more troubling reality.
“It’s easy to laugh at the ‘big, beautiful face’ comment or the Nobel Peace Prize nonsense,” Sullivan said. “But we should be worried. Democracy isn’t lost in a single moment. It’s lost in a thousand small steps, where people stop speaking truth to power and start nodding along.”
The Broader Implications for American Democracy
Sullivan’s warnings come at a time when numerous civil society organizations and scholars are sounding alarms about democratic backsliding in the United States. The V-Dem Institute, which tracks democratic health around the world, downgraded the U.S. in its latest report, citing erosion of executive constraints and declined media freedom. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index has similarly placed the U.S. in the category of “flawed democracy” for several years running.
One of the key indicators of democratic health is whether government officials are willing to publicly disagree with the president. In Trump’s cabinet, such disagreement has been rare. The few officials who have broken ranks, such as former National Security Advisor John Bolton or former Attorney General William Barr, have been publicly vilified by Trump and his allies. Others, like former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, wrote memoirs detailing their struggles to steer the president away from impulsive decisions. Esper was fired in 2020 after publicly disagreeing with Trump’s desire to use active-duty troops to quell racial justice protests.
Sullivan, who worked closely with Esper’s counterpart under Biden, said the contrast is striking. “In my experience, the cabinet members I worked with felt comfortable telling the president what they really thought, even if it was something he didn’t want to hear. That’s how you avoid catastrophic mistakes. But this current cabinet seems to have abandoned that sense of duty.”
He added that the consequences may not be immediately visible, but they will materialize over time. “When you have a president who is surrounded by yes-men, you end up with policies that are not thoroughly vetted, decisions that are not well-considered, and a nation that is less safe. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
What Comes Next?
As the Trump administration moves forward, observers will be watching to see whether any cabinet member is willing to challenge the president on significant issues. So far, none have emerged. Instead, the pattern of praise and loyalty has intensified, with each public appearance featuring new heights of flattery. Trump’s own statements about serving beyond the customary two terms have unsettled legal scholars, who note that the 22nd Amendment specifically limits presidents to two elected terms. However, Trump and his allies have floated legal theories that the amendment’s wording could be circumvented, though these ideas have not gained mainstream traction.
Sullivan expressed hope that Americans would recognize the danger and act accordingly. “We have a Constitution that is worth defending, and a democratic system that has survived for over two centuries. But it can only survive if people are willing to speak out, to stand up, and to hold their leaders accountable. I hope we still have the will to do that.”
He noted that the same cabinet members who offered such effusive praise at Tuesday’s meeting would be the ones tasked with ensuring a peaceful transfer of power in January 2029, should the Constitution be followed. “It’s a scary thought, but it’s not an inevitable one. We have time to reverse course, but not much.”
Source: The Daily Beast News