“I don't know if he did (call),” Trump said.

“I was told he didn't often and a lot of presidents don't. They write letters...I do a combination of both. Sometimes it's a very difficult thing to do, but I do a combination of both. President Obama I think probably did sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn't. I don't know. That's what I was told.”

He just wants bigger, shinier, costlier. He wants military parades as a show of strength. He told his aides he wanted 32,000 nuclear weapons because that was the largest number of nuclear weapons that a president ever had, and he wasn’t going to be outgunned by any other president. Forget about how the budget should be allocated, what America’s role in the world should be, or why on earth we need to build tens of thousands of nuclear weapons again. (U.S. Strategic Command officers already have a hard time explaining, when pressed, why they even need the 4,000 nukes they have.) Those things, in his mind, aren’t important.

32,000 was the largest number of nuclear weapons that a president ever had, and Trump wasn’t going to be outgunned

Things are getting a little “Real Housewives” around the White House.

In one of the stranger sideshows to his presidency, President Trump’s first and third wives, Ivana and Melania, respectively, on Monday had a very public war of words — and his second wife, Marla Maples, is getting some shade out of the spat, to boot.

Here’s a breakdown: To promote her new book, “Raising Trump,” about parenting Trump’s three eldest children, Ivana Trump gave a Monday interview to “Good Morning America” in which she made some comments sure to privately raise the hackles of the woman occupying the role of Wife of Donald.

“I’m basically first Trump wife. Okay?” Ivana Trump said. “I’m first lady.”

She offered faux sympathy for Melania Trump, saying “I think for her to be in Washington must be terrible.” (She had less subtle insults for her ex’s second wife, Marla Maples. “A showgirl” was her epithet of choice.)

In one room, vacant chairs faced 25 blank computer monitors. Three students sat in a science lab down the hall, and another nine in an unlit classroom, including one youth who sprawled out, head down, sleeping.

Only three of the more than 170 students on Capital’s rolls attended class the required five hours that day, records obtained by ProPublica show. Almost two-thirds of the school’s students never showed up; others left early. Nearly a third of the roster failed to attend class all week.