But on Friday, Donald Trump dragged his administration to the historic retreat for a very different kind of exercise: a televised, downcast plea for political survival disguised as a meeting of the executive branch. Framed by White House press aides as a historic milestone — the first-ever live, televised Cabinet meeting held at the Thurmont, Maryland retreat — the event quickly devolved into an unvarnished display of midterm desperation. But whatever aura of historic prestige the White House hoped to cultivate vanished almost immediately as the president pivoted from boilerplate economic boasts to an explicit, alarmist pitch to American voters. The sheer absurdity of taking a Cabinet meeting on the road to Camp David simply to beg for votes underscores how deeply rattled the White House has become as November approaches. Trump, by contrast, brought the press pool along for the ride, eager to use the solemnity of the location to mask the thinness of his agenda.