According to Politico [1], Donald Trump loves himself a nice photo, and some dumb meeting isn’t going to stop him from sharing it.
A new report on the early days of the Trump presidency describes an informal meeting in then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s office, which the president apparently “burst into.”
Trump “apologized for interrupting but said he wanted to show them something,” the report said.
An aide then brought in a picture of Abraham Lincoln, which Trump described by saying, “Abraham Lincoln. President Abraham Lincoln. They’ve got all kinds of cool stuff here.”
Trump would later add a painting of himself drinking a Coke sitting across from Lincoln and other past Republican presidents to this collection of “cool stuff.”
This instance is included as an example of what Politico calls Trump’s “disbelief that he, of all people, was now occupying such a weighty office,” not an unbelievable claim considering Trump has expressed similar sentiments publicly, such as when he famously said in May 2017, “I’m president. Can you believe it?”
Trump has also praised Lincoln fairly randomly on a number of occasions as well, like when he declared in 2017, “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.”
From Politico:
Trump often seemed in disbelief that he, of all people, was now occupying such a weighty office. A former staffer recalls being in an informal meeting in Flynn’s office when the president burst into the room. Trump apologized for interrupting but said he wanted to show them something. An aide came in with a framed photo of the 16th president. “Abraham Lincoln. President Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said, according to the ex-staffer. “They’ve got all kinds of cool stuff here.”