When Donald Trump held a White House Cabinet meeting last week, it was easy to imagine a serious and sober gathering, held against a backdrop of war and domestic economic tumult. The president, however, appeared to have other things on his mind.
Partway through the meeting, the Republican took several minutes to talk about his appreciation for, of all things, Sharpie pens. The Associated Press reported:
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.’
What followed was a lengthy and detailed description of a conversation the president claimed to have had with the company that makes the pens.
“I called the guy, I said, ‘I’d like to use your pen, but I can’t have a great thing with a big S on it saying “Sharpie” as I’m signing a $1 trillion airplane contract to buy brand-new fighter jets,’” the Republican said. He proceeded to talk at length about this alleged chat, noting the company’s alleged willingness to accommodate his stylistic preferences. (As is usually the case, the story included several points at which the unnamed person on the phone called him “sir.”)
“So the guy said to me, ‘You don’t have to pay me, sir. I’ll give them to you for nothing.’
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want that. Let me pay you. I want to pay you.’
“‘No, sir. You don’t have to. You’re the president of the United States.’ He was shocked. The head of Sharpie. He gets a call. I don’t even know who the hell he is.
“He said, ‘He’s really the president?’ He said, ‘No, you don’t have to pay me, sir. This is such an honor.’
“I said, ‘No, I want to pay you.’
“And he said, ‘What would you like to pay?’
“I said, ‘How about five bucks a pen?’
“He said, ‘That’s all right.’”
The day after the Cabinet meeting, The Washington Post reported, “The company that makes the permanent markers said the exchange never happened. … Presented with a transcript of Trump’s account, a spokesperson for Sharpie maker Newell Brands said it did not occur.” When the Post asked the White House to clarify who the president had spoken to and when, it received no response.
Trump already had a “Sharpiegate” mess in his first term, and the sequel is about as absurd.
But what troubles me about this is the familiarity of the circumstances. As a rule, when the president talks about imaginary conversations, he sticks to vague descriptions that make fact-checking difficult.
Occasionally, however, he’ll slip up. He recently shared the details of a conversation with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, for example, that did not occur in reality. That followed an incident in which he shared the details of a conversation with his late uncle, John Trump, about Ted Kaczynski, which also did not occur.
Trump once described a chat with “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon that the president made up. He described a phone conversation with then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto that, in reality, never occurred. Around the same time, Trump went into great detail about a phone call he’d received from the head of Scouting America, which also hadn’t happened.
Two weeks ago, the incumbent president said he’d spoken this month to one of his Democratic predecessors who lamented the fact that he hadn’t launched a war against Iran during his term. Spokespeople for every living former president confirmed: There was no such chat.
I realize this framing is trite, but for all of the obsessive focus on Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity during his term, the Democratic president never went around sharing the details of fictional conversations that he said he was having in the here and now. Trump, meanwhile, does it all the time.
The post Trump shares a conversation with Sharpie maker that apparently never occurred appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.