Republican Senator Lamar Alexander handed Donald Trump a 5-foot walking cane after a White House event on Tuesday, saying the Republican president might just need a “big stick” this fall.
The former Tennessee governor, presented Trump with the decades-old “mountain man stick,” after the president signed into law a major bipartisan conservation bill called the Great American Outdoors Act, at the White House.
Alexander told Reuters he was given the stick made by a craftsman in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when he walked across his home state during a gubernatorial race in 1978.
“I thought it would be appropriate for the president,” Alexander said, lauding Trump’s willingness to fund needed maintenance of national parks using oil and gas royalties.
Conservationist Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who Trump mentioned during the signing, famously once said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
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