What Occurred at Trump’s Insane Iran Warfare Cupboard Assembly? – The Washington Customary

Trump discussed custom Sharpie pens, his love of himself, the Triumphal Arch, and fake gold.

Trump’s Cabinet Meetings Are Completely Insane

JP reports Trump weaves from Sharpies to Bessent’s glasses in cabinet meeting

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Four weeks into a U.S.-Israeli war with Iran that has sparked the worst energy shock in history, President Donald Trump addressed his cabinet and the news media on Thursday, digressing into his preference for Sharpie pens, admiring his Treasury secretary’s glasses and joking about running for president of ​Venezuela.

MEDIAite notes Trump Spends Over 5 Minutes on the Cost of Sharpie Pens in Bizarre Cabinet Meeting Riff

President Donald Trump went on an extended, freewheeling tangent about the cost of Sharpie pens during a live, televised Cabinet meeting Thursday morning — a five-plus-minute riff that careened from federal construction overruns, to ballpoint pen aesthetics, to a personal phone call with a Sharpie executive, all while the United States is actively at war with Iran, gas prices are spiking at home, and America’s allies are declining to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Also consider We’ve Stopped Noticing That Trump’s Cabinet Meetings Are Completely Insane

Here is a partial list of subjects covered by the President of the United States at Thursday’s cabinet meeting:

The obliteration of Iran’s navy. The TSA shutdown. A woman killed in Chicago. The Federal Reserve building renovation. The cost of Sharpie pens. Venezuelan oil revenue. King Charles’s cancer. Gavin Newsom’s self-reported learning disability. Cognitive tests. SCOTUS. The Kennedy Center. California high-speed rail. NATO’s failure to send ships. A thousand-dollar pen that didn’t write. The prime minister of the United Kingdom. Caravans. Sanctuary cities. The 25th Amendment. A joint venture with Venezuela. Drug smugglers who don’t watch television.

That was one meeting. Ninety-eight minutes. A wartime cabinet briefing.

Donald Trump Holds a Cabinet Meeting at the White House – March 26, 2026

JP has the Full Transcript of the Iran War Update Cabinet Meeting. Select snips below, in sequence.

TSA

But Democrats are really punishing the American people. I saw it today on one of the shows where they were interviewing people at the airport, and they were all angry at the Democrats. They’re saying — they’re actually angry at Schumer. I didn’t think anyone knew his name. One woman said, that Schumer is disgraceful, he’s a disgrace to our country.

Epic Fury

This morning I want to give an update on the Operation Epic Fury, which is an appropriate name because we are absolutely obliterating them. Over the past three weeks, we’ve been hitting Iran’s military capabilities at a level that few people have ever seen before. People never knew there was such a capability.

We have the strongest military anywhere in the world, by far. I built it during my first administration and I used it during my second administration, unfortunately, because I’d rather not have to use it. But it’s a display of force and precision and skill like nothing the world has really witnessed, although you got a pretty good witnessing of it in Venezuela also.

The drones, too, are way down. But the reason they’re down is they — they go one way and they don’t come back because, for the most part, we’re shooting them down. But we also are able to — we’ve — we’ve really done tremendous damage to the places where they make them. And just so we set the record straight because I’ve been watching the Wall Street Journal’s fake news and all these stories that get printed, like, oh, I want to make a deal.

They are begging to make a deal, not me. They are begging to make a deal and anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal. But they say, oh, we’re not talking to — anybody would know they’re — only a total fool — and they’re not fools. They’re very smart, actually, in a certain way and they’re great negotiators.

They now have a chance to make a deal, but that’s up to them and they’ll tell you we’re not negotiating. We will not negotiate. Of course they’re negotiating, [Mish: How is that logically possible?] they’ve been obliterated. Who wouldn’t negotiate? They are begging to make a deal. We’ll see if we can make the right deal. And if they make the right deal, then the Strait will open up, Hormuz Strait will open up. And even now we don’t know if there are any mines. [How good is our military intelligence anyway]

You know, they have 22 mine — they call mine droppers. Think of it, who would have 22 mine droppers? There’s a boat that drops mines. Who has 22 mine droppers? Except for people with very evil intentions. So, every one of those mine droppers has been struck with the same weapon we used to stop drugs from coming into the United States of America.

Drugs

And now we’ll stop the drugs coming in by land. The land is the easy one, you had to stop the water. A lot of it came in through water, now it’s all pinched and these people are trying to come in by land. And we will — that’s the easy one. But we had to take care of the water first. Nobody’s coming in. Virtually nothing is coming in anymore. [Mish: Trump seems to confuse Venezuelan boats with Iran]

It was hundreds of millions of dollars a week were coming in by water. But they now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to chart a new path forward. We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away unimpeded, unstopped and there’s not a thing they can do about it. They can’t do anything about it, you know.

The DOW

Now, before this started, the Dow hit 50,000. The S&P hit 7,000. Both of those achievements were not achievable. [Mish: Now that’s an amusing revelation] Every one of you, most of you, I guess, said you’ll never hit 50,000 during a four year period because it was too high a number. Well, we hit it in our first year. And I said, well, now we have to take an excursion to Iran and we have to stop this maniac who’s no longer with us, the supreme leader wasn’t so supreme, no longer with us, it’s very sad.

But we have to stop him from blowing up the world, blowing up the Middle East and blowing up our country. And we did that. And I thought — frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more, and I thought the stock market would go down more, hasn’t been nearly as severe as I thought. [Does anyone believe that?]

Drug Prices

[To the media] You don’t write about it. You don’t write about the drug prices going down. It’ll be going down 30, 40, 50, 60 percent, 70 percent. [Mish: Year over year CPI for Medical Care Commodities is +0.1 percent, but some select drugs may be significantly lower.]Favored Nations, called Most Favored Nations. We’re going to be paying the lowest price anywhere in the world. Before, we paid the highest price in the world, Bobby, right? And now we’re going to pay the lowest price in the world. That’s quite a difference. It’s a difference of from 40 to 70 and 80 and even 90 percent. That’s a pretty big difference. [Mish: Nothing is going down 90 percent]

Farmers

We had to take a little detour, go to Iran, and we had to put out a fire, very dangerous fire that could have blown up big portions of the world, if not the whole thing. So tomorrow will be announcing a variety of actions that we’re taking to support American farmers, who we never forget.

We love the farmers. We gave them $12 billion out of tariff money. We had a tremendous amount of tariff money come in and we continue to have. We’ve gone — as you know, the Supreme Court gave us a very unfortunate, foolish ruling, a ruling that gives the people that have ripped off our country for many years, gives them some money back.

But it’s one of those things. It’s a terrible, terrible, horrible mistake they made but it’s OK because we have another method that’s just as good. We’ll use the other method. But because the tariff money has been so substantial, we gave our farmers who have been mistreated by some countries, we gave them $12 billion and they’re extremely happy.[Mish: Farmers are not extremely happy]

Right About Everything

And my predictions have been right. Trump was right about everything. They have a new hat, Trump was right about everything. It’s pretty right. But, uh, Scott’s going to address that and I think before we go very much further, I want to ask Vice President JD Vance to say a few words about where we are with, uh, the situation.

You know, it’s very interesting because yesterday I was watching, is it Antony Blinken? And he was saying that they should have done it, but they didn’t do it. [Mish: In a 10-point post on X, Blinken rebuts this lie] Nobody did it. Nobody did it. For 47 years, Marco, that’s the number, 47. I guess now it’s 48, because we’ve been saying 47 for a long time.

It’s probably 48. But for 47, 48 years, every president should have done this. And some are saying now that they made a big mistake in not doing it, but we’re taking care of business. Steve Witkoff, please.

Crime and Mardi Gras

Uh, Louisiana, the governor of Louisiana called me, can you help me with New Orleans? They just had the Mardi Gras. He said it was the safest Mardi Gras we’ve ever had. It sounds terrible to say, no murders. You know, it sounds like, who would say this no murders, but they always had murders. They had a lot of crime during Mardi Gras.

He said, virtually no crime. We had the troops down there. Uh, Memphis, Tennessee, I just got back. We were there. Crime is down 75 percent in a short period of time. We’re there five months. We could do that for Chicago. We could do that for New York we could do that for LA, and we could do that for, frankly, San Francisco.

The Triumphal Arc

We’re building an arc, a triumphal arc, which will be incredible for the city, incredible. We’re fixing up the what was the Kennedy Center. I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit. Actually, it shows that the Republican and the Democrats, they worked together. It’s really something. We work together. [Mish: There is not a Democrat in the country happy with the name change to Trump-Kennedy Center]

So I think it’s a great symbol, actually, but we’re doing a lot of work. That building is ready to fall down. It’s — it’s in terrible shape. We’re closing it. We’re going to open it with a bang and less than two years it will come in under budget ahead of schedule. That’s what I do. It won’t be like the Federal Reserve that’s costing $4 billion or something thereabouts.

Think of it, $4 billion. You know, it’s amazing. I said to the group before, I said, everything I do, I get sued. I build under budget, ahead of schedule. I get sued over a ballroom that’s going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country, so desperately needed. You won’t have to have tents sitting on the wet White House lawn, if it rains, you get wiped out, to honor the president of China or the president of France or the president of somewhere.

You can have the greatest — we get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Uh, they don’t know what they’re doing. Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group, I guess, on the — on the fixing up of — of — again, I’ll use the old name, Kennedy Center. Because they’re not fixing up Trump — what — it’s going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump, but we got sued and all I’m doing is fixing it up. We’re fixing broken marble.

We’re putting on a roof because it leaks like a sieve. We’re fixing steel that’s broken. It’s the same building, same exact building. We’re fixing it. It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be so beautiful and safe. It’s actually unsafe. You had some of those columns on the outside that were painted a fake gold.

Now, we painted them a beautiful white color, beautiful cream white. It’s beautiful. Everyone says it’s so much more beautiful now instead of a cheap — you can’t imitate gold. See, I’m a gold person. It’s all real stuff. You can’t imitate it. Someday, they’ll discover a paint that will look like gold and the guy’s going to be the richest man in the world.

But you can’t imitate real gold. It just doesn’t. That’s 24 karat, which is what this building deserves. But think of it, I get sued because I’m fixing up the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re going to make it gorgeous and safe. We’re fixing new windows, new this, but just all fix up. I got sued by preservationists.

Federal Reserve Building and Jerome Powell

But you know who they didn’t sue, the man that took this beautiful Federal Reserve building that’s small, much smaller than the hotel I built. I built the Waldorf Astoria Hotel down the road, and it was a beautiful job for $200 million, $201 million. It’s bigger, I think, than the Federal Reserve Building, and it’s got rooms and bathrooms.

And it’s not like just an open office space, which is much cheaper to build. Think of this. I hear he’s going to be over $4 billion for a little building. He doesn’t get sued by anybody but me.

I sue because it’s either somebody’s very crooked, which has to be because what happened to all that money? You can’t do — I would have done that building for $25 million. It’s going to cost maybe $4 billion and we have a great new person coming in to take over the fed. And Kevin may not ever have an office because I don’t know if they’re going to be able to build — I passed that building the other day, it’s a see through.

Do you know what see through means? There’s no walls up, and they’re going to spend — But the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a joke, by the way, they didn’t sue that building, they didn’t sue anybody. But they sued me and I build — and by the way, my buildings, it’s all donations. Rich people and people are putting up the money, zero taxpayer dollars, is that right, Scott?

Zero taxpayer dollars. Stuff is all done for free and I get sued. This can only happen to Trump. But they don’t sue the guy whose interest rates are too high, that’s why we call him Too Late. His name is Jerome Powell. We call him Jerome Too Late Powell and done a terrible job. He suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, as he probably should because I hit him pretty hard.

So, I don’t blame him. But they don’t sue a man who has taken this gorgeous building, ripped it down from the inside, taking ceilings that are as beautiful as you’ve ever seen, taken the ceilings down instead of leaving them, taking walls down that were two feet thick of solid concrete and plaster, replacing them with six-inch walls with no insulation.

I said, let me ask you, are you going to put insulation in? No, it’s not in the budget. Oh, insulation costs $5. Now you’re going to hear the guy next door, if he’s next door to me, I’ll be able to hear his military plan, I’ll know exactly — if Lutnick is in there I’ll say, oh, I know exactly what Lutnick has got planned.

It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. They’ve ripped this gorgeous building apart, and you can never build it again. I could, but it would cost a lot of money, but a normal person can never build — so, you’re going to have crummy little walls, a flat little ceiling eventually but right now you don’t have anything.

And nobody sues this guy. And then when Jeanine Pirro, working with Pam and others, has the courage to sue to find out what happened to maybe $4 billion and a building that may never be occupied by Kevin Warsh. You may never get there. We’re going to have to find him some space in the White House. We’ll put him in the basement of the ballroom. [Laughter] But when — no, think of it, when Jeanine Pirro and Pam in the group, when they bring a suit it’s like, oh, this terrible thing.

Gavin Newsom

And then we have a judge that attacks us, attacks us. So, we’ve got to get our priorities straight. It’s a very sad thing that’s happened with the fed. And then, just one other thing very quickly, you have Gavin Newsom in California, a railroad that’s 100 times over budget. It’s out of control. It was supposed to go from the middle of San Francisco to the middle of LA. Well, now it stops way short of both; it now goes into areas that nobody ever heard of. It’s billions and billions of dollars over budget, years and years, maybe decades late.

And that’s why we have a country that has a lot of problems, you know, we have incompetent people. It’s all people. Think of the Federal Reserve, I would have had that building done for $25 million, if I did it, it wasn’t up to — somebody else would have done it for more, so maybe 50. But you could have done that building, if it was properly done and planned, you would have done that building for — I would have done it — for $25 million and it would be better, it would be better.

Sharpie Discussion

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. [Laughter] So, I came here, they have $1,000 pens.

And you know, you hand pens out, you’re signing and you hand them out. You’re handing them to all these people, sometimes you have 30 or 40 people and they were $1,000 a piece, beautiful pen, ballpoint, $1,000, it was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing out to kids that don’t even know what the hell.

What is this, mommy? There’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, by nature I don’t — you know, it’s the government. I love the government like I love myself economically. [Mish: What a hoot]

I want to save money, so I’m saying this is crazy. And I had another problem; they didn’t write well.

So, I take it out and I sign it and there’s no ink and I’ve 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. That’s when 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 saying Sharpie as I’m signing a $1 trillion airplane contract to buy brand new fighter jets, brand new B-2 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. 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. I said, what can you do? He said, I’ll paint it black.

I said, that’s nice. And I can 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 pen sitting there, I thought that this is 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.

Back to the Federal Reserve Building

And, you know, one of the things that Kevin Warsh told me, he said they ripped down the nicest building. I don’t know what building they’re talking about. They ripped down a building, Scott, right? Kevin Warsh said it’s the most beautiful building in Washington, he said, the most beautiful space, they ripped it down. [Mish: That’s a lie. They did not rip down the Federal Reserve building. Trump did rip down the West Wing for his grand ballroom].

Why did they do that? I don’t know. Do you know what he’s talking about? Is it true?

[Mish: Kevin Warsh replied “Yes Sir.” That was a lie by Warsh. The project involves replacing deteriorated exterior marble with new domestic marble while preserving the original facade and structure.]

They ripped it down. We have a moron at the Fed. Who wouldn’t be lowering interest rates right now? But I want to thank Jeanine Pirro and Pam and her group for having the courage to bring this suit. And I believe that the contractor on that job is probably one of the richest men in the country right now.

I believe that it’s not possible to spend that kind of money. $3 billion, $4 billion — nobody knows, nobody has any idea what it is, but it’s over $3 billion and it’s probably going to be over $4 billion by the time they finish. And it may never get finished unless I take it over. I’ll get it finished, but it can never be what it was.

It’s never going to have those beautiful ceilings. It’s never going to have those incredible walls. The walls were a foot and a half thick of solid masonry. They ripped them down for no reason. And I just gave you the story. And just to finish on this one, so I told that story to somebody who said, yeah, but I mean, but it’s not the same thing.

Back to Sharpie Pens

[Mish: Repeated paragraph for clarity] It’s never going to have those beautiful ceilings. It’s never going to have those incredible walls. The walls were a foot and a half thick of solid masonry. They ripped them down for no reason. And I just gave you the story. And just to finish on this one, so I told that story to somebody who said, yeah, but I mean, but it’s not the same thing.

[Mish: The transition to the next paragraph makes no sense but here goes]

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, no, I want to pay you. He said, what would you like to pay? I said, how about five bucks a pen? He said, that’s all right, whatever the hell we agreed to, peanuts as opposed to $1,000. And these were $1,000 pens and we were giving them out.

Sometimes, you know, you were there for signings, I’d have 30 or 40 people standing behind me, I’d give out 40 pens to people. Then somebody would say, could I have a couple extra? This is why I go like this, hey, you want five? Here, take five. But the bottom line is they’re better pens. It’s a business story.

So, for $5 — it could be zero — but for $5 I get a much better pen than for $1,000. And I can hand them out and actually they become hot as a pistol. So, what can I tell you. With that could I give it to, please, a man who’s done a great job at Treasury, Scott? Good luck, Scott.

On Scott Bessent’s Glasses

[Mish: Scott Bessent, not Trump]As we approach the 250th anniversary, America will never be safer and more secure militarily and economically. Thank you.

[Mish: Back to Trump] Thank you. I just want to ask you a question. Is this guy central casting? I’m looking at him, I mean, Treasury, he might not be so good for war. I don’t know.

I’m looking at this guy. He’s central casting. Even the glasses are perfect. Where did you get those glasses? I think I’m going to get glasses like that. [Laughter] That’s beautiful. Great job. That’s really good. No, he’s done a great job. You all have. Proud of you all. Uh, do you have any questions?

Uranium and Munitions

[Mish: Reporter] Yes. Mr. President, are you going to go in for the uranium?

Let’s assume I was or I wasn’t. Why would I ever answer a question [Inaudible] what kind of a question, am I going to go in for the — oh, yeah, we’re going in. We’re going in tomorrow, 3:00. How could you possibly ask a question like that and expect an answer? I don’t know. But I don’t know. I think you’re a friendly person, too.

It’s just such a ridiculous question.

[Mish: Reporter] Thank you, Mr. President. There’s been a report that potentially the US is looking at diverting some munitions, air defenses that were meant for Ukraine to the Middle East. Is there any accuracy to that? Is that something you’re considering?

It doesn’t have any impact on us, virtually nothing. In fact, if anything, I mean, we sell a lot of equipment for that unfortunate war. 25,000 people died last month, 25,000 mostly soldiers. Some in the towns but for the most part, soldiers. They’re dying. Nobody’s seen anything like it since World War II. Uh, it’s, uh, it’s a terrible situation, and hopefully that’s going to get settled.

You know, I settled eight wars, and many of them, I think were more difficult than this one. In theory, they were more difficult, but there’s tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, tremendous hatred. I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never seen maybe to this extent. Uh, and I think that’s calming down a little bit.

And I think we have a chance of getting it done, but we — it doesn’t affect us, thousands of miles away. That’s why when I heard the head of Germany say, this is not our war about Iran, I said, well, Ukraine’s not our war, we helped, but Ukraine’s not our war. I thought it was a very inappropriate statement to make, but he made it. You can’t erase it. But he felt that way.

I said, well, you know, Ukraine’s not our war, but — and it’s not, but I would like to see all those young people stop being killed. I mean, they’re being killed. It’s like a slaughterhouse. What’s happening there is horrible, 25,000. On our last — two months ago, it was 31,000 people died in one month, Marco, right?

We stopped one that was starting. It was already started, India and Pakistan. And the prime minister of Pakistan, a very fine gentlemen, said, President Trump solved something that was going to cost 10 million lives. That was going to cost a lot of lives, two nuclear nations. And those were complicated, but we got them done quickly. [Mish: India denies Trump’s version]

Fake News

[Mish: Reporter] — while Iran still has that enriched uranium, is it even possible — [Mish: Trump cuts off the question]

Well, you’re going to have to see, but, you know, I think we’ll be — we’re in just very good shape. We’re roaming — you know what we’re doing? You know the word roaming free? We’re over there skies with the most beautiful planes you’ve ever seen, roaming free. There’s not a damn thing they can do about it. And it would be nice if, like, the fake news, New York Times, which writes so fake, and the Wall Street Journal is terrible, terrible.

I mean, I read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal. I’m not — I don’t — if I was desperate, he’d be the first to know. Pete, let’s get the hell out of there. I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care. I want to know — in fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave. We’re hitting them on a daily basis.

About the Democrats and Gavin Newsom

I don’t care about the Democrats. The Democrats hate our country. The Democrats are in chaos right now and they have no common sense. You know, they have one quality that’s amazing, they stick together. And it’s harder because they stick together on ridiculous policy, like men playing in women’s sports, open borders for everybody, including murderers and anybody else who want it, we’re open to you.

Come in murderers. You know why they do that? They do that for a couple of reasons, but they do it for votes because they think they’re going to vote for the Democrats, even though I did great with the Hispanic vote, tremendous with the Hispanic vote. You know, I turned that whole thing around. The Hispanics like me, and I like them.

So, you know, I won the election with a very tremendous Hispanic vote. And I think it’s higher now than it was then. So, we’re a party of common sense. The Democrats are a party of insanity. They’re a party that will destroy our country. If I didn’t win this election, I believe our country would have been destroyed by now.

One year, that’s all it would have taken. If you had Kamala or Sleepy Joe, either one, it wouldn’t have mattered, they’re the same thing, two sleepy people, two stupid people. I believe — and by the way, Gavin Newscum, who is one of the candidates, I believe he took himself out of the running when he says he suffers from mental disability.

And a reporter said it was terrible that I talked that way about somebody with mental disability. I said, I have no problem with it, but I don’t want a person with mental disability to be my president. I mean, you don’t want to have a person with mental disability being your president, and Gavin Newsom said that he can’t read a speech.

Cognitive Tests and Obama

I don’t want a stupid person being president. You know, I’ll say it right now I say it because no press ever reports it. I’m the only president that ever took a cognitive test. I took it three times. It’s actually a very hard test for a lot of people; it wasn’t hard for me. But it’s a cognitive test; it starts off with an easy question, and by the time you get to the middle gets tougher.

By the time you get to the end, very few people can answer those questions, they get very tough mathematical equations and things. I took it three times; I aced it all three times in front of numerous doctors that I have no idea who they are. And I was told when I went in, they said — Doc Ronny told me this.

My current doctors are fantastic doctors, they said, well, if you take it, you know, it’s Walter Reed, it’s essentially a public hospital. And if you do badly, it’s probably going to get out. But I aced it, I got them all right. And one doctor said, I’ve never seen anybody get them all right, I’ve been doing the test for 20 years.

I want people — I would love to see anybody that’s a president or a vice president, or anybody that has any chance of being a president, I would like to see them take a cognitive test, because we had a man in this office that had no clue what was happening. And let me give you a little secret, he wasn’t a smart man 30 years ago.

And I’ll tell you about President Obama, he wasn’t a smart man either. I know all about him, he wasn’t a smart man, highly overrated. He was a great divider, and our country can’t go through that anymore, can’t go through. [Mish: It irony of calling someone else a divider is stunning. Trump is the world’s greatest divider]

The Excursion

We have done an amazing job. I had to do a little stopover; I call it an excursion. [Trump is torn between using the word war and excursion. He can’t seem to make up his mind. But here’s the key. It’s war when he talks about military targets and it’s an excursion when it involves any US losses including knock-on impacts of oil.]

I had to do a little stopover in Iran, and we had to knock the hell out of them. Because our country would not have been safe; the world wouldn’t have been safe. I’ve done a great favor for the world. The world has not been — it has not been reciprocal, because when I told NATO where we give billions and billions of dollars, trillions over the years, I said, do you mind coming up and giving us a little hand with the Straits?

Send up some — they didn’t want to get involved. And I believe that’s going to cost them dearly. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

What an Amazing Cabinet Meeting

I hope everyone is clear on …

• Sharpie Pens
• Cognitive Tests
• Gavin Newsom
• Scott Bessent’s Glasses
• Negotiations with Iran
• Fake News
• The Triumphal Arc
• The Trump-Kennedy Center
• Ballroom Renovations
• The Federal Reserve Building
• Jerome Powell
• Mardi Gras Crime
• Farmers
• Obama as the Great Divider
• The DOW
• Gold Paint
• Imitation Gold
• Trump’s Love of Himself
• Trump being right about everything
• And Trump’s necessary side excursion

This is one for the record books, perhaps until the next meeting.

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Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock