With less than two weeks left in the year, Donald Trump and the beleaguered Republican party finally notched a win, passing a massive tax bill that also hamstrung Obamacare and opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (A.N.W.R.) to oil drilling, for good measure. While this was technically a victory, polls conducted during the bill’s drafting indicated that the American people loathed it: by the time the final bill hit the floor of Congress, more than half of Americans disapproved of the plan, according to CNN, Monmouth University, Marist Poll, and several other polls. This wide cross section of polling, backed up by reams of analysis suggesting that the bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion, failed to register on Trump’s radar as he bullied onlookers into celebrating its passage.

Holding court in the Roosevelt Room just a few hours after House Republicans put their final tweaks on the bill, the president bragged to his Cabinet and a captive press about steering coverage away from the individual mandate repeal (“I told people specifically, ‘Be quiet with the fake-news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it’”) as well as a measure that lets oil companies drill in Alaska’s wildlife refuge (“It’s not ever mentioned by the press, and that was fine until now. Now you can mention it”). That done, he asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to break with precedent and offer grace. “You can stay if you want to because you need the prayer more than I do, I think,” he told the media. “You may be the only ones. Maybe a good solid prayer and they’ll be honest, Ben. Is that possible?”

The display somehow topped Trump’s first televised Cabinet meeting, in which Cabinet members took turns heaping evermore extravagant praise on the president. But it was only the setup for an effusive monologue from Vice President Mike Pence, who went on about his love for the president for three minutes straight. In all, The Washington Post found that the veep worked in one compliment every 12 seconds: