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.”
It was one of several lengthy asides the president made during the meeting that sometimes felt especially jarring given how many more important things his top advisers could have been discussing.
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 US troops that remain in harm’s way.
