Donald Trump's "Imaginary" Friend "Jim"

About

Donald Trump's "Imaginary" Friend "Jim" refers to a conspiracy theory regarding United States President Donald Trump numerous references to a person named "Jim," who he regards as a friend, but some believe does not exist.

Origin

While President Trump had mentioned Jim on the 2016 campaign trail, Jim became a national news story on February 24th, 2017. During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Donald Trump discussed foreign policy and the growing threat of terrorism in Europe (video below). As an example, he delivered an anecdote about his friend "Jim." He said:^[1][2]

"I have a friend, he's a very, very substantial guy. He loves the city of lights, he loves Paris. For years, every year during the summer, he would go to Paris, was automatic with his wife and his family. Hadn't seen him in a while. And I said, Jim, let me ask you a question, how's Paris doing? "Paris? I don't go there anymore, Paris is no longer Paris." That was four years -- four or five years hasn't gone there. He wouldn't miss it for anything. Now he doesn't even think in terms of going there."

That day, Twitter user @RubenBolling^[3] posted a stock photos of an elderly man golfing with the caption "Please, help Donald Trump's friend 'Jim,' who can't go to Paris anymore. Give generously. #IStandWithThatSubstantialGuyJim." The tweet (shown below), which received more than 50 retweets and 60 likes, implied to mystery over the existence of "Jim."

Spread

Shortly after the speech, the Mayor Paris posted a picture of herself standing with a pair of costumed performers dressed as Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. She captioned the post "À Donald et son ami Jim, depuis @LaTourEiffel nous célébrons l'attractivité de #Paris avec Mickey et Minnie" (translation: Donald and his friend Jim, since @LaTourEiffel we celebrate the attractiveness of #Paris with Mickey and Minnie). The post (shown below) received more than 1,400 retweets and 2,300 likes.^[4]

On March 13th, The New Yorker magazine published an article entitled "Who Is Trump's Friend Jim?" The article breaks down a small investigation on how the magazine attempted to find who this person was, concluding that "Jim the Francophobe was turning out to be the jet-setting counterpart to those vague characters (like Joe the Plumber) with whom politicians have so long stocked their narratives of economic stagnation."^[5]

Four months later, on July 13th, the Associated Press^[6] published a report, which asserted that Jim might not be real, entitled "Trump in Paris: The curious case of his friend Jim." Several other news outlets covered the Associated Report's piece on Jim, including The AV Club,^[7] HuffPo,^[8] Mashable,^[9] Telegraph^[10] and more. Twitter published a Moments^[11] page on the piece, as well.

The article sparked a resurgence of interest in Jim as people began posting jokes that Jim is Trump's imaginary friend.

Later that day, during President Trump's joint press conference with President of France Emmanuel Macron in Paris, a reporter asked about Jim (shown below). However, Trump did not confirm whether or not Jim was real nor did he make mention of Jim.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References