There’s a 92% Chance Trump Is Making It Up

Marie-Rose Sheinerman: “President Donald Trump likes to use a big number to anchor his point, especially when he wanders off on a tangent. Often it seems that a specific figure is on the tip of his tongue…”

“His fixation on the number between 91 and 93 has been a feature for a while. In April, Trump claimed that egg prices had fallen by 92 percent. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 12.7 percent.) And at a rally shortly before last November’s election, while railing against journalists and the media, he allowed that ‘not all of them’ are ‘sick people.’ Just ‘about 92 percent.’ That one, admittedly, is difficult to fact-check.”

“I came upon this curious pattern in the course of tracking down the basis for a far more serious claim the president has made repeatedly as part of his justification for the U.S. military buildup near Venezuela.”