What did Donald Trump do today?

He kept the media focused on the important things: whether there is a paint that could look as gold leaf would on the crown mouldings of the Cabinet room.

Trump held a Cabinet meeting today, and—as is his unique custom—spent it collecting praise from each of his department heads and airing his grievances. A great deal of what Trump said was a rehashing of old lies, with the usual caveat that it is not always clear that Trump doesn't genuinely believe some of his falsehoods. 

He did make some news, as for example when he admitted that he was unaware that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had unilaterally halted arms shipments to Ukraine.

REPORTER: So who ordered the pause last week?

TRUMP: I don't know. You tell me.

(Astonishingly, this is the second time Hegseth has done this without notifying Trump—or the second time Trump has been told and forgot.) 

He also had some criticism for the media. One reporter asked about rumors that the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had had some connection with American intelligence agencies. This was actually a friendly question, as it could help explain why Epstein initially received an extremely lenient sentence from a Florida district attorney, Alexander Acosta, who then became Trump's Secretary of Labor during his first term. 

But Epstein is a sensitive subject for Trump, who was a close friend and who made comments in public about how well he knew about Epstein's taste for "younger" sexual partners. Trump responded by attacking the media in general for not focusing on more important matters:

TRUMP: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. We have Texas, this, all of the things, and, and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. You want to waste the time — I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this when we're having some of the greatest success and, and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems, uh, like a desecration but you go ahead.

Later, Trump was asked another question that wasn't about Texas floods or a similarly consequential story: his efforts to redecorate the White House. This was his answer, which took eleven minutes:

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Maybe just in closing, we spent a lot of time, effort, very little money on this room. This is called the Cabinet Room. It's been here for a long time. It had some pictures that were, not many of them, and not very good ones and I actually spent time in the vaults. The vaults are where we have a lot of great pictures, artwork and I picked it all myself. That's Andrew Jackson. That's a gentleman named and we call him "President Hope." He was sort of a real estate guy. People don't realize, he was a one-termer but he was a very good president and I'm not sure I should be doing this, he gave us the state of California. I'm not sure. Maybe he won't be there for long. The frame is almost the exact same size so that was one of the reasons, I have to be honest but Polk is a very good president about had the same frame that I needed. Up here you have the original George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower who was a very underrated president, built the Interstate system. He was the toughest president I guess until we came along but I don't mind giving up that crown. I don't want to be too tough on it. We want to be humane. He was the toughest president on immigration. He was very strong at the borders, very, very strong. Sometimes you can be too strong. He was strong at the borders and during a certain period of time they were so strong that almost every farmer in California went bankrupt. We have to remember that. We have to work together. We have to remember that but he was a very good president and very good general and a very good president and I thought he deserved a position somewhere on this floor and then you have, this is very exciting to me, he was not a Republican to put it mildly. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We have a lot of ramps. He was wheelchair bound but he was an amazing man. It's an amazing portrait and we used to have him in the room, a different portrait and it was a terrible portrait. It was almost like it was done by a child and I used to say you know I can't believe that he would have approved of that portrait of himself. And I was in the vault looking at things. I said what's that? And we have some great curators here. We have six great cure raters here at the White House. Of course there's no object. May have one but that's all right. They are very talented. He said that's a picture of FDR. I said really? Let me see it. Very well preserved. That's the picture they've been looking for for years. That was the picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. See frame, frame wise, it doesn't work. I want to be nice but it doesn't work if you have a big frame, a little frame but it's perfection. The mirror was down in the vaults also. I said where is this from? Beautiful, we put that up. Then over there is honest Abe Lincoln and that picture was in his bedroom and we thought that this would be a very important place because this is where wars are ended. I'm going to not say wars are declared. I'll say wars will be ended. I'm going to be positive. Sat in the bedroom for many years. That was his favorite picture of his self and the Lincoln Bedroom was very famous. You remember when Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out to people. We don't do that. It was an incredible room and we took that picture from his bedroom. That's abe lincoln. Over here you have John Adams, and they were the first occupants of the White House, 1800 . And John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Adams, we have them looking at each other and in between their stare is Abraham Lincoln trying to make peace and that picture was in a room that I have that was not important like the cabinet. I gave it up, I said I have to give it up because that's one of the greatest pictures in the White House. The White House has tremendous art and the oval office, when we're there, we'll go over that. That's something. We have the drapes, the whole thing. New drapes. It wasn't a big expense, very small. We took some of the china ware and silverware from the vaults and we had it cleaned up. Some of this has sat in the vaults for over 100 years. Many of the pictures that were put up in the oval office as an example, those two as an example, so he was president. He moved in in 1800 and he won the election I believe in November of 1800. John Quincy Adams. And we thought that would be—he was considered to be a good president and he was the first occupant of the White House so it made sense. I love the frame of those pictures. I'm a frame person. Sometimes I like the frames more than the pictures and we have the flags of the marines and space force now has its own flag. I'm very proud of the Space Force. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, whole thing. Coast Guard is right there. Never forget the Coast Guard. They do a great job. We have the flag -- it's really become quite a beautiful place. I don't want to tell—Marco pointed it out. I said leave the clock. As president you have the power, if I go into the state department or the department of Commerce or treasury, if I see anything that I like, I'm allowed to take it. So I'm in Marco's office and I see this gorgeous clock, grandfather clock. I said there it is, I said Marco. Rules and regulations, I said Marco, I love this clock, look at it. He said what clock? The clock that's in the other room is incredible. Nobody gets to see it there. Marco—I tried to talk him into it at first and it sort of worked and then I had to use a little more. I'd love to take that clock out and put it in that cabinet room. I said are you serious? I said Marco, I have the right to do it, Marco. That's his contribution to the cabinet room. By the way, it's an incredible clock. It's an important room. So if I see it again, maybe we'll move it back. Here we put these lamps have been very important actually if you see pictures like Pearl Harbor and Tora! Tora! Tora! And often times I show the lamps. This is a very important room. You never know what they do but they were missing medallions. They had a chain going into the ceiling and I said you can't do that. You have to have a medallion. They said what's that? I said I'll show you. And you see them, they were put up there. We did these changes and when you think of it, the cost was almost nothing. We also painted the room a nice color, beige color and it's been really something. The only question is, my—my cabinet can take a vote. You see the top line moldings, because you can't paint it. If you paint it, it won't look good because they never found a paint that looks like gold. You see that the in the Oval Office. They tried for years and years, they never found a paint that looks like gold. Painting is easy but it won't look right. Linda, do you have an opinion?

EDUCATION SECRETARY LINDA McMAHON: I'd gold leaf it.

TRUMP: Would you gold leaf it? 

 Trump is correct about this much: it is difficult to find a paint that looks exactly like gold leaf.

Why does this matter?

• Redecorating the Cabinet Room should actually not be this high on the list of presidential priorities. 

• Knowing (or remembering) what your Defense Secretary is doing with respect to a major world conflict should be.

• One way to avoid reporters asking questions about your relationship with sex criminals is not to have relationships with sex criminals during which you talk openly about your knowledge of their sexual habits.