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At a White House Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Trump spoke about the Cabinet room.
Transcript
00:00Maybe just in closing, you know, we spent a lot of time, effort, very little money on this room.
00:05This is called the cabinet room. It's been here for a long time.
00:09And it had some pictures that were not many of them and not very good ones.
00:15And I actually spent time in the vaults.
00:17The vaults are where we have a lot of great pictures and artwork.
00:21And I picked it all myself. I'm very proud of it.
00:24That's Andrew Jackson, great Andrew Jackson.
00:27That's a gentleman named, and we call him President Polk.
00:32He was sort of a real estate guy.
00:34He was, people don't realize, he was one of them.
00:37He was a one-termer, but he was a very good president.
00:42But, and I'm not sure I should be doing this.
00:44He actually gave us the state of California.
00:46He was the one that I'm not sure.
00:51Maybe he won't be there for long.
00:54But if you notice, the frame is the exact same size,
00:57almost as the other one is Andrew Jackson.
00:59So that was a part of the reason, too, I have to be honest.
01:02But Polk is, was actually a very good president,
01:04who's got the same frame that I needed, okay?
01:08And up here, you have the original George Washington
01:11right behind the light.
01:13And then you have Dwight Eisenhower,
01:15who was a very underrated president.
01:17He built the interstate system,
01:18and he was the toughest president,
01:21I guess, until we came along.
01:22But I don't mind giving up that ground,
01:24because I don't want to be too tough on it.
01:26But we want to be humane.
01:27But he was the toughest president on immigration.
01:31He, he was very strong at the borders.
01:34Very, very strong.
01:36And sometimes you can be too strong.
01:38He was strong at the borders.
01:40And during a certain period of time,
01:42they were so strong that almost every farmer
01:45in California went bankrupt.
01:48And we have to remember that.
01:49We have to work together and we have to remember that.
01:52But he was a very good president
01:54and a very good general and a very good president.
01:57And I thought he deserved a position somewhere on this floor.
02:02And then you have, this is very exciting to me,
02:05he was not a Republican, to put it mildly,
02:08but he was, you know, he was a four-termer.
02:11He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
02:14And have you noticed, there are a lot of ramps outside.
02:17We have ramps, people say, it's an unusual place for a ramp.
02:20It was because of him.
02:22He was wheelchair-bound.
02:25But he was an amazing man.
02:28It's an amazing portrait.
02:30And we used to have him in the room, a different portrait.
02:34And it was a terrible portrait.
02:36It was almost like it was done by a child.
02:39And I used to say, you know,
02:40I can't believe that he would have approved of that portrait of himself.
02:43And I was in the vaults and looking at things.
02:47I said, what's that?
02:48And we have some great curators here.
02:50We have six curators at the White House.
02:52They have two for paintings.
02:54They have them for furniture.
02:55They have them for different things.
02:58I guess cost is no object.
02:59Okay, cost is, maybe I'd have one, but that's all right.
03:03But we have six and they're very talented though.
03:05And he said, that's a picture of FDR.
03:08I said, really, let me see it.
03:09They took off the wrappings, very well preserved.
03:11And I said, that's the picture they've been looking for for years.
03:15That was the picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
03:19And I said, oh, wow.
03:21And likewise, that fit, see a frame?
03:24Frame-wise, it just doesn't work if you have, I want to be nice,
03:28but it doesn't work if you have a big frame, a little frame of you.
03:31But it's like perfection.
03:32I'm a perfectionist.
03:34The mirror was down in the vaults also.
03:36I said, where is this from?
03:37And it's a very old, very storied mirror, beautiful.
03:40Before we put that up.
03:42And then over there is Honest Abe Lincoln.
03:46And that picture was in his bedroom.
03:50And we thought that this would be a very important place
03:54because this is where wars are ended.
03:57I'm not going to say wars are declared.
03:59I'm going to say wars are ended, okay?
04:00We'll be positive.
04:01And that's the picture of Abe Lincoln from his bedroom.
04:07Sat in the bedroom for many, many years.
04:08That was his favorite picture of himself.
04:11And the Lincoln bedroom is very famous.
04:13You remember when Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out to people.
04:19We don't do that.
04:20But it's an incredible, it's an incredible room.
04:23And we took that picture from his bedroom.
04:25That's Abe Lincoln.
04:27And then over here you have John Adams and it's, this was, they were the first occupants
04:34of the White House, 1800.
04:35And John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Adams, they were the first occupants.
04:41So we have them looking at each other and in between their stare is Abraham Lincoln trying
04:48to make peace.
04:49And that picture was in a room that I have that was not important like the cabinet.
04:56I gave it up.
04:56I said I have to give it up because that's one of the greatest pictures of the White House.
05:00The White House is tremendous art.
05:02And the Oval Office, when we're there, we'll go over that.
05:06That's really been something.
05:08Then we got the drapes and we got the whole thing.
05:10We got new drapes.
05:11We got new, it wasn't a big expense, very, very small.
05:15And we took some of the China wear and silver wear and trophy wear, they call it, from the vaults.
05:22And we had it cleaned up, hadn't been shined up in a hundred years.
05:26Some of this has sat in the vaults for over a hundred years.
05:29Amazing.
05:30Over a hundred years.
05:31Many of the pictures that were put up in the Oval Office, as an example, those two, as
05:36an example.
05:37So he was president.
05:38They moved in in 1800 and he won the election, I believe, in November of 1800, John Quincy Adams.
05:46And we thought that would be, he was considered to be a good president.
05:49And he was the first occupant of the White House, so it sort of made sense.
05:53And I love the frame of those pictures, look at those frames, you know, I'm a frame person.
05:58Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures.
06:00And we have the flags of the Marines and Space Force now has its own flag.
06:06I'm very proud of Space Force.
06:08But the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, the whole thing.
06:12And Coast Guard is right there.
06:15You'll never forget the Coast Guard.
06:16They do a great job.
06:17So we have the flags throughout the office.
06:19And it's really become quite a beautiful place.
06:23I don't want to tell this, oh, Marco pointed that out.
06:27I was going to leave the clock.
06:29So as president, you have the power.
06:31If I go into the State Department or Department of Commerce or Treasury,
06:35if I see anything that I like, I'm allowed to take it.
06:40Do you know this?
06:41So I'm in Marco's.
06:42I see this gorgeous clock, grandfather clock.
06:47And there it is.
06:47I said, Marco.
06:51I didn't know about it.
06:53I had to read him the rule and regulation.
06:55I said, Marco, I love this clock.
06:57Look at it.
06:58It's beautiful.
07:00He said, what clock?
07:01I said, the clock that's in the other room
07:05is incredible.
07:06And nobody gets to see it there.
07:09Marco, I tried to talk him into it first.
07:11And it sort of worked.
07:12And then I had to use a little more.
07:14I said, I'd love to take that clock out
07:16and put it in the cabinet room.
07:18He said, no, are you serious?
07:20I said, Marco, I have the right to do it, Marco.
07:23And he said, all right, what the hell?
07:27That's his contribution to the cabinet room.
07:30But it's, by the way, it's an incredible clock.
07:31And, you know, it's an important room.
07:33So you may see it again.
07:35Maybe we'll move it back someday.
07:37Anyway, so that's pretty much it.
07:39But it really is great.
07:42Here we put out, you know, these lamps
07:46have been very important, actually,
07:48whether people love them or not.
07:50But they're, if you see pictures like Pearl Harbor
07:54and Tor, Tor, Tor, you see movies about the White House
07:58where wars are being discussed,
08:00oftentimes they'll show those lamps
08:02or something like those lamps,
08:03something that looks like them.
08:05Probably not the reals,
08:06because I don't think they were allowed to.
08:07This is a very important room.
08:08It's a sacred room.
08:10And I don't think they made movies from here.
08:12You never know what they do.
08:14But they were missing medallions.
08:16See the medallions on top?
08:18They had a chain going into the ceiling.
08:20And I said, you can't do that.
08:22You have to have a medallion.
08:23They said, what's a medallion?
08:24I said, I'll show you.
08:25And we got some beautiful medallions.
08:28And you see them.
08:29They were put up there.
08:30It makes the lamps look better.
08:31So we did these changes.
08:34And, you know, when you think of it,
08:36the cost was almost nothing.
08:38We also painted the room in a nice color, beige color.
08:43And it's been really something.
08:45The only question is, will I gold-lif the corners?
08:49You could maybe tell me my cabinet could take a bow.
08:52You see the top-line moldings.
08:57And the only question is, do you gold-lif it?
08:59Because you can't paint it.
09:00If you paint it, it won't look good,
09:02because they've never found a paint that looks like gold.
09:05You see that in the Oval Office.
09:07They've tried for years and years.
09:09Somebody could become very wealthy.
09:10But they've never found a paint that looks like gold.
09:14So painting it is easy, but it won't look right.
09:16And the question is whether or not we should gold-lif it.
09:19Does any?
09:19Linda, do you have an opinion?
09:20I'd gold-lif it.
09:21You like it the way?
09:22No, I'd gold-lif it.
09:24You'd gold-lif it?
09:24Yeah.
09:25Who would gold-lif it?
09:26Could I erase you?
09:27How about...

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