A clear sign that Trump just made up a number? It's 10,000.

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 6 September 2019

President Trump has a very obvious tell.

It's no secret that Trump is a huge fan of exaggeration, often pulling election results and disaster relief funding totals out of seemingly thin air. But there's one number he leans toward when talking about stocks, jobs, crowd sizes and more: 10,000, Bloomberg reports.

Take, for example, the numerous times Trump has tried to blame his trade war with China for a slumping stock market. "If I wanted to do nothing with China, my stock market — our stock market — would be 10,000 points higher than it is right now," he told reporters Wednesday. That kind of jump would drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average up an unprecedented 38 percent. Trump slung the same number in a June interview with ABC News, saying if the Federal Reserve had rejected rate increases last year, the stock market would also be "10,000 points higher than already a very high number."

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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