Heads bowed, linked by arms across their backs, they gathered in a solemn prayer circle. “The quiet moments are often the most important,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, reflected later on social media. Then Team Trump entered the chamber to cheers and applause for Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Democrats gathered on Capitol Hill, however, regarded the people appointed by Donald Trump to his cabinet and other senior positions rather differently. In the past two weeks alone, they saw a health secretary who boasted about snorting cocaine off toilet seats; a homeland security secretary who allegedly fired a pilot for leaving her blanket on a plane; and an FBI director who chugged beer with Olympic hockey players in Italy at taxpayers’ expense.

In all of US history, there has never been government leadership quite like it. Although these individuals swear undying fealty to the president, their colourful and erratic antics may prove his political undoing. Yet there is no hint that the man who became famous for saying “You’re fired!” on reality TV has any intention of casting them aside.

Tara Setmayer, founder of the Seneca Project, a women-led political organisation, said: “If you elect a clown, he brings the circus. This is the cabinet that we currently have. It is the most corrupt, incompetent, and embarrassing cabinet in the history of the United States and unfortunately it’s the American people who are paying for it, literally and figuratively.”