President Donald Trump delivered a rambling anecdote about how “the head of Sharpie” offered him customized pens—but the company said that never happened.
Trump, 79, took five minutes out of his Cabinet meeting on Thursday to brag about how he got custom-made Sharpies and saved American taxpayers thousands of dollars in the process.
“So I came here, and 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, 40 people, and they are $1,000 a piece,” Trump complained. “Beautiful pen, ballpoint, $1,000. It was gold, silver, gorgeous. But I’m handing [them] out to kids that don’t even know what they are.”
“So I’m saying this is crazy, and it had another problem: They didn’t write well,” he continued. “So I take it out, and I sign, and there’s no ink, and I got all you people looking, and you say, ‘There must be something wrong with Trump.’”
Trump proceeded to recount how he “called a guy,” whom he later identified as “the head of Sharpie,” and explained that he wanted to use the iconic pens but didn’t want them to come in their typical gray packaging bearing the brand’s logo.
“He said, ‘Well, I can make it nicer,’” Trump quoted his Sharpie dealer as saying.
The president said the individual offered to paint the pens black and add designs, such as his signature and a drawing of the White House.
“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,’” Trump said.
“He was shocked. The head of Sharpie gets a call—I don’t even know who the hell he is,” he continued, drawing laughter from the room.
Eventually, they settled on $5 per pen, according to Trump.
“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,” the president concluded.
As vivid as Trump’s anecdote was, Sharpie maker Newell Brands said the interaction didn’t actually happen.
“We don’t have any information about the conversation described,” a company spokesperson told The Washington Post when reached for comment about Trump’s rambling story. “We’re proud to be a beloved brand trusted by so many globally.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Friday.
