Donald Trump spent nearly five minutes of a Cabinet meeting on Thursday rambling about… Sharpie pens ― the subject of his first term controversy that was mockingly dubbed “Sharpiegate.”

The president’s lengthy tangent drew swift backlash, with CNN conservative pundit S.E. Cupp calling it “embarrassing” and Patrick Murphy, a former undersecretary of the U.S. Army, describing it as “infuriating.”

Watch their comments on CNN.

Watch Trump’s comments from the 52-minute mark here:

Trump droned on at length about pens while appearing to attempt to make an extremely labored point about how the best things aren’t always the most expensive.

He began by boasting that the multi-billion dollar renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters could have been done by him for far less — and would have been “better.”

Then he turned to pens:

See this pen right here? This pen is an interesting example. It’s the same thing. So, this pen is very inexpensive but it writes well. I like it. But I can’t have the pen the way it was. You know what it is. I don’t want to give too much publicity, but they do treat me well. Sharpie. So I came here. They have thousand dollar pens. And you know, you hand pens out. You’re signing and you’re handing them out. You’re handing them to all these people. Sometimes you have 30, 40 people. And they were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen. Ballpoint. Thousand. It was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing out to kids that don’t even know what they are. ‘What is this, mommy?’ It’s kids. They’re getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is. And I feel guilty because I’m like, you know, I’m by nature. I don’t, you know, it’s the government. I love the government. Like, I love myself economically. I want to save money.

He went on:

So, I’m saying, ‘This is crazy.’ And it had another problem. They didn’t write well. So I take it out and I sign and there’s no ink and I got all you people looking and you’re saying, ‘There must be something wrong with Trump.’ And I’m signing and there’s no ink in the pen and it cost $1,000. This one, I called the guy. I said, ‘I’d like to use your pen, but I can’t have a gray thing with a big S on it.’ Same sharpie. As I’m signing a a trillion dollar airplane contract to buy brand new fighter jets, brand new B2 bombers of which we just ordered plenty. I can’t do that with the press. Use your pen, but I like the pen the best, but I’ll sign it.

And on:

I could do like Biden did, you know, give it to somebody else to sign or an auto pen or maybe sign it separately in another room, but I can’t use your pen. He said, ‘Well, I can make it nicer.’ Said, ‘What can you do?’ He said, ‘I’ll paint it black.’ I said, ‘That’s nice.’ ‘And I could even paint the White House on it, sir, if you like. In gold.’ Almost real gold. Not bad. ‘And I can even do your signature, sir.’ And by the way, this was not staged. I just saw the pens in there and I thought of this as an example of how $25 million spent by me at the Federal Reserve building would be a better job than $4 billion that they’re spending.

He blathered on about some other things before turning back to the pens and finally concluding:

So I told that story to somebody who said, ‘Yeah, but I mean, but it’s not the same thing.’ And I said, ‘You’re right. This one is better. It writes.’ 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 gets a call. I don’t even know who the hell he is. He said, ‘Is this really the president?’ He said, ‘No, you don’t have to pay me, sir. This is such an honor.’ I said, ‘Nope, I want to pay you.’ He said, ‘What would you like to pay?’ I said, ‘How about five bucks a pen?’ They said, he said, ‘That’s all right.’ Whatever the hell we agreed to, peanuts as opposed to a thousand.

Oh, wait — he had a bit more to add:

And these were thousand dollar pens and we were giving them out sometimes, you know, you were there for signings. I’d have 30, 40 people standing behind me. I’d give out 40 pens to people. Then somebody would say, ‘Could I have a couple extra?’ This way I go like this. ‘You want five? Here, take five.’ But the bottom line is they’re better pens. It’s a business story. So for $5, could be zero, but for $5 I get a much better pen than for $1,000 and I could hand them out and actually they become hot as a pistol. So what can I tell you?

Finally, the great Sharpie story of March 2026 came to a close.

Critics on social media were left asking: “WTF?”

Trump: You see this pen right here? This pen is very inexpensive. But it writes well. I like it. Sharpie. I came here. They had $1,000 pens. You hand out pens. You hand them to people. 30, 40 people. They were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen, ball point. I hand out to kids that… pic.twitter.com/mrEXypiA0o

Ohhhhkaaayyy https://t.co/wsrXugYQpe

I’m beginning to think he blathers on to keep himself awake

These Trump cabinet meetings are straight out of the North Korean version of Curb Your Enthusiasm — awkward, scripted praise sessions with zero substance. Embarrassing on the world stage, and even worse for Americans: no new ideas, no relief on inflation or energy costs, no…

No ink in the pen, no water in the faucet, no water in the dishwasher, non-flushing toilets. Grandpa has a lot on his plate to fix.

The volume of gibberish that effortlessly gushes out of his mouth is simply remarkable.

Wow. I'm going to be saying "WTF?" all day long.

Trump has an amazing ability to zero in on the most critical item on the agenda. 🤦♀️

Showers. Toilets. Water pressure. Microphones. Lighting. Windmills, Democrats. Biden. Obama. And now, pens.

Americans are dealing with high gas prices while the president brags about how expensive his sharpies are.Insane. https://t.co/2negxDa2rT

imagine if Joe Biden said this

They laugh, clap, nod like bobbleheads and clap like trained seals just to keep the narssasitic sociopath happy. He speaks in circles, spewing nonsensical, incoherent words and never completes a sentence. The GOP and MAGA find him to be brilliant. Fucking amazing.

what the fuck is he even talking abt https://t.co/Hck7dxjxQv

Does he ever have a fucking point?

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