Donald Trump's Small Hands

About

Donald Trump's Small Hands refers to a series of jokes referring to the supposedly smaller-than-average hand size of President Donald Trump.

Origin

In 1988, Graydon Carter, writing for Spy Magazine, referred to Trump as a "Short-fingered vulgarian" as a way to get under Trump's skin.^[1]

Spread

Carter recalled the jab in a Vanity Fair editorial published November, 2015, which re-introduced the idea that Trump has small hands to a national audience. According to Carter, the jab did in fact get under Trump's skin, as Carter reports occasionally receiving an envelope from Trump with a picture of himself torn from a magazine in which his fingers are circled with the comment "Not so short!" On February 1st, 2016, Mother Jones^[2] published a playful article that investigated what Trump's finger-size would mean for his presidency. Vanity Fair^[3] published a list of photographs in which Trump's hands look small a few weeks later.

Trump's small hands became a talking point during the 2016 Presidential Republican Primary when Marco Rubio lashed back at Trump's insult for him, Little Marco. At a campaign rally on February 29th, 2016, Rubio said that though Trump is 6'2", he doesn't understand why Trump has hands the size of someone who is 5'2". He went on to possibly suggest Trump has a small penis, saying "You know what they say about guys with tiny hands," pausing before he clarified, "You can't trust them!"

On March 3rd, at the Republican Primary Debate in Detroit, Michigan, Trump responded to Rubio's quip by assuring Americans his penis was of an unproblematic size, saying "I guarantee you, there's no problem."^[4] The national discussion of Trump's hands inspired a series of jokes and photoshops about Trump's tiny hands. On June 17th, NPR^[5] reported on a small Super PAC, Americans Against Insecure Billionaires With Tiny Hands, devoted to making fun of Trump's hands that had filed on March 3rd. On August 3rd, Hollywood Reporter discovered via a handprint of Trump's cast in bronze at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum that Trump's hands were in fact smaller than 85% of American men. On August 4th, DailyKos^[7] published an article with list of Trump's hands memes created by the author. The Atlantic,^[8] Huffington Post,^[9] and Washington Post^[10] are among some of the major media outlets that have covered Trump's hand size.

Retouching Allegations

On January 27th, 2017, New York Observer writer Dana Schwartz^[11] tweeted a claim that President Trump's White House staffers had digitally enlarged the size of his hand in a photograph that he hung in the White House to make it seem bigger, citing a two-panel size comparison of President Trump's left hand as seen in the White House photograph of him embracing President Obama before his departure on Inauguration Day and a Getty Images^[13] photograph of the same scene. Within two hours, the tweet gained more than 21,000 retweets and 29,000 likes.

Throughout the afternoon, Schwartz's tweet prompted a social media inquiry into the authenticity of her claim, with both skeptics and believers offering a range of conclusions based on image analysis, including cluding an overlay comparison GIF of the two images from Twitter user @Joabaldwin^[12] who suggested that the image had been digitally edited using the warp deformation feature.

That early afternoon, several news sites, including Washington Post^[15], The Daily Dot^[18] and Next Web,^[14] reported on Schwartz' claim, as well as a compilation of tweets speculating whether or not Trump's White House staffers had altered the photo to make his hands look bigger. However, by close to 2:00 p.m. (EST), Washington Post followed up with a conclusion that the photo had not been digitally manipulated, citing a size comparison GIF of Trump's hand as seen in the Gettys Image photo and an ABC news video clip of the moment shot from the same angle.

Tiny Hand Font

On October 17th, 2016, BuzzFeed News ^[19] published a piece of satire entitled "An Exclusive And Completely Factual Snapshot Of Donald Trump's Speech Notes." The piece featured a font by Mark Davis called "Tiny Hands," which was used to mimick Trump's handwriting.

The following day, BuzzFeed^[20] announced that the font was available to download.^[21]

On November 21st, 2019, the font went viral for a second time, after it was reported on Boing Boing ^[22] and tweeted about by Fast Company.^[23]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References