WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump may believe the adage that the pen is mightier than the sword — as long as it's a Sharpie.
During a Cabinet meeting Thursday that discussed the war in Iran, record-long security lines at many of the nation's top airports, rising oil prices and skittish stock markets, the president interjected by holding up a custom-made black and gold Sharpie and offering a long story about how his preferred marker came to be a White House fixture.
"See this pen right here?" Trump said at the start of a roughly five-minute, on-and-off diatribe on the Sharpie. "This pen is an interesting example."
President Donald Trump speaks Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington.
It was one of several lengthy asides the president made during the meeting. The Sharpie monologue came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, envoy Steve Witkoff, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered sobering comments about missile strikes, Tehran's uranium enrichment efforts and the U.S. troops that remain in harm's way.
People are also reading…
The president offered the winding tale as an example of how his business sense can lead to better, cheaper outcomes in federal spending. The Republican, who demolished the East Wing to build a sprawling $400 million White House ballroom, also sought to drive home his criticism that renovations to the Federal Reserve Building in Washington are too expensive.
"We've gotta get our priorities straight," Trump said.
His anecdote began with him insisting the White House was once stocked with "beautiful" ballpoint pens that cost $1,000 each.
That presented a problem, Trump said, when, during ceremonial bill signings, he would hand out pens as keepsakes to lawmakers, supporters and various others who helped make new legislation possible. Recipients even included children, whom he lamented did not know the value of what they were gifted.
"Sometimes you have 30, 40 people," he said. Giving away so many expensive pens meant "I feel guilty by nature."
"I love the government like I love myself, economically," Trump said. "I want to save money."
President Donald Trump holds a Sharpie pen, which he says was produced specifically for the White House, during a Cabinet meeting Thursday at the White House in Washington.
The president said he worked with a marker maker and worried about giving the company involved too much publicity — only to divulge that it was Sharpie, a longtime favorite of his.
For decades as a celebrity businessman, he used the pens to sign autographs or mark up newspaper clippings and send them with personalized notes written in the telltale thick black ink. As president, Trump continued to wield the pens to sign executive orders, proclamations and bills.
Trump said he contacted Sharpie and was told the company could make a black pen with the White House logo in gold and wouldn't charge for it. Trump said he insisted on paying $5 per marker. Online searches reveal that typical Sharpies usually sell for $1 to $2 apiece.
"For $5, I get a much better pen than for $1,000, and I can hand them out," Trump said. "And, honestly, they've become hot as a pistol, so what can I tell you?"
"The head of Sharpie gets a call. I don't even know who the hell he is," Trump said. "He said, 'Is this really the president?'"
President Donald Trump holds a chart Sept. 4, 2019, as he talks with reporters after receiving a briefing on Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.
It was the most attention the marker received at the White House since the "Sharpiegate" scandal involving Hurricane Dorian during Trump's first term.
Sharpie's manufacturer, Atlanta-based Newell Brands, said it didn't have any information about the conversation Trump described, but Sharpies are used by current and past U.S. presidents, elected officials, celebrities, athletes and artists, among others.
