(CNN) Let's get one thing straight, Donald Trump was orange long before the government phase-out of incandescent light bulbs began more than 10 years ago. Like his bizarre, pumpkin-colored coiffure, the President's complexion has been an unnatural phenomenon for at least a decade.

But with a quip delivered to Republican House members in Baltimore Thursday, Trump admitted he looks strange, though he insisted it's because of modern fluorescent and halogen lights. Bulbs have become an issue because the Trump administration is easing restrictions on the incandescent types that consume far more electrical power and, thus contribute to the pollution from fossil fuels that causes climate change.

"People said what's with the light bulb?" Trump told the group. "I said here's the story, and I looked at it: The bulb that we're being forced to use — No. 1, to me, most importantly, the light's no good. I always look orange. And so do you!"

The audience laughed at Trump's remark and it was funny, especially the part about how everyone looks orange because, in fact, we don't. Whether indoors, or outdoors, or bathed in the extreme light of a TV studio, nobody in public life is as orange as the President. It was the first thing I noticed about him when we first met back in 2014.

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We were in the boss's corner office in Trump Tower, where windows that offered views to the north and the west admitted so much natural light that Trump could read his press clippings without even switching on a lamp. Like his hair, which is fashioned into mysterious swoops, even then the exact source of Trump's skin color was difficult to discern.