As people have spent the last few weeks (and let’s face it, the last few years for some) getting pumped about the eclipse, this important piece of advice follows: don’t stare directly at the extraterrestrial event, tempted as you may be, because it will literally burn your eyes out. Symptoms of retinal burns include temporary or permanent distorted vision, altered color vision, and loss of vision altogether.

But since when did our president heed such plebeian warnings?

Yep, as President Donald Trump watched the moon partially block the sun from the White House’s Blue Room Balcony, he at one point threw caution to the wind and glanced at the sun sans eye protection.

“Don’t look!” shouted one of the Executive Branch staffers gathered on the front of the White House lawn to him, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Ted Mann.

And it’s not for lack of protective glasses, hard as they may have been to find in D.C. He put on the glasses at approximately 2:41 p.m. and observed the partial eclipse for about 90 seconds, according to the White House pool reports. By 2:45, he, First Lady Melania Trump, and youngest son Barron went back inside.

Trump’s family joined Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump, and others on the balcony around 2:38 p.m., according to the pool reports.

He will give a speech on the United States’ future in Afghanistan at 9 p.m. tonight, where he is expected to deploy 4,000 additional troops.

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