6 memorable times Trump wielded his trademark Sharpie
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- Donald Trump is known for having a penchant for the bold strokes of a Sharpie marker.
- His handwritten notes became source material for internet jokes and ridicule.
- From executive orders to hurricane forecast maps, here are six times Trump wielded his signature pen.
Jonathan Ernst/File Photo/Reuters
The former president developed a penchant for using the black marker on documents throughout his presidency, the bold strokes of which have been seen on anything from executive orders to marking up speech drafts to allegedly altered hurricane maps.
Trump loved to use a Sharpie so much he even reached out to the stationary company to design a custom pen for him to sign documents, emblazoned with his mountain-peak-like signature.
In a four-part series done in partnership with by HBO and Axios in 2018, he made no secret of his love for a Sharpie pen — and how much he hated using government-ordered writing utensils traditionally used by presidents.
"I was signing documents with a very expensive pen and it didn't write well," Trump said, referring to the government pen. "It was a horrible pen, and it was extremely expensive."
He added: "And then I started using just a Sharpie, and I said to myself, 'Well wait a minute, this much writes much better and this cost almost nothing.'"
Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Trump Organization — but not the former president himself or his children — is on trial this week facing charges of criminal tax fraud, falsifying business records, and filing false tax returns in a scheme to defraud the state.
After the trial kicked off on Monday, documents from the Trump Organization were presented to jurors by the trial's first witness, Jeffrey McConney, who works as the company's controller.
McConney identified the signatures — in distinctive bold Sharpie — on some half-dozen documents, which included important letters and payroll documents, as that of the former president.
In a May 1, 2005 letter detailing an overhead projection, Trump personally authorized a $6,500-a-month lease for a Manhattan apartment to be lived in exclusively by his longtime chief financial officer.
"In other words, Donald J. Trump authorized Donald J. Trump to sign the lease" for the apartment, Joshua Steinglass, one of the two lead prosecutors, said during the trial.
Chris Keane/Reuters
Trump's notes were clearly visible to cameras — aided by the former president's tendency to hold them up to the crowd for emphasis.
At a campaign rally in Virginia in 2016, the then-presidential hopeful touted national polling numbers and talked about Jeff Sessions, who was an early supporter of Trump's presidential campaign in 2016
Trump also mentioned Ashley Guindon, a Virginia police officer who was killed on her first day on the job, and he vowed to "restore law and order [and] respect [for] the men and women who protect," per his notes.
Yuri Gripas/Reuters
In a press conference ahead of declaring a state of emergency amid the spread of COVID-19 in March 2020, Trump briefed the nation on the distribution of ventilators and respirators ahead of the rapidly spreading respiratory disease that was then shrouded in mystery.
In his notes, the then-president jotted down to mention how "good govs are getting it done, bad ones are not."
"We're really backing up the governors. The governors have to go out and do their things and you have a lot of governors, they've done a fantastic job," Trump said during the press conference on March 22, 2020. "You have some that haven't. Usually, it's the ones that complain that have the problems."
He added: "But we've had a great relationship as an example with Governor Cuomo, with Governor Newsom," noting them specifically due to the "hotbeds" of infection that were transpiring in their states respectively.
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
One of the platforms that Trump infamously campaigned on for president was building a wall at the border, which eventually came to fruition — though not to completion — in his time at the White House.
In September 2019, he paid a visit to a border wall construction in Otay Mesa, a neighborhood in San Diego County, California. With a hefty price tag of $147 million, the 14-mile section of steel beams, concrete, and rebar replaced the construction of a decades-old wall that was previously installed in the 1990s.
"You can fry an egg on that wall," Trump told the reporters and officials gathered during his visit, referring to the wall's design to absorb heat.
And without fail, the former president brought out a Sharpie to sign one of the slats of his beloved border wall, which he said was at the request of the border patrol agents at the site.
"I autographed one of the bollards," he said. "There are a lot of bollards. That's a lot of bollards."
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In September 2019, ahead of the devastation brought in by Hurricane Dorian, the then-president said the storm was headed to Alabama.
"In addition to Florida - South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated," Trump tweeted at the time. "Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!"
In a bid to quell public panic regarding the former president's errant forecast, the Birmingham branch of the National Weather Service set the record straight, blatantly correcting his prediction.
"Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian," the agency said in a tweet the same day. "We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east."
But Trump doubled down once again on his claims and refused to accept the NWS' forecast, instead presenting a map of Hurricane Dorian's path with a black Sharpie stroke extending the storm's path over Alabama. The incident later became known as "SharpieGate," prompting its fair share of internet mockery and memes in its wake.
—The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) September 4, 2019
Erin Scott/Reuters
During Trump's first impeachment inquiry, Gordon Sondland, former US Ambassador to the European Union, delivered damning testimony publicly confirming the quid pro quo request from Trump to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The articles of impeachment were related, in part, to Trump's efforts to strong-arm Zelensky into launching politically motivated investigations against the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election and withholding vital military aid while doing so.
But like Trump's persistent spoken words in challenging the accusations of quid pro quo, his written ones echoed the same weight of denial, as written in bold Sharpie on Air Force One stationary in 2019.
"I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo," he wrote. "Tell Zelensky to do the right thing. This is the final word from the pres of the US."
And, of course, the note had its heyday on the internet as people turned it into Eminem jokes, Pearl Jam setlist jokes, and lyrics of a Morrissey song.
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