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."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bloomberg is sure to point out that sometimes, 10,000 is the number Trump should actually be saying. For example, if he'd like to describe the number of false or misleading claims he'd made by late April of this year, 10,000 would be right on point.
Find out why Trump might be stuck on 10,000 at Bloomberg.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.