Trump Talked About His Hand Size Again During Hurricane Relief, And, Please Stop
Well, here we are. Again. President Donald Trump bragged about his hand size while helping out with hurricane relief. This time around, it was in Naples, Florida, during relief for Hurricane Irma. Last time, it was at a shelter in Houston, Texas, during relief for Hurricane Harvey. In both situations, Trump felt it necessary to bring up the size of his hands while helping people out in the aftermath of the storms.
In both cases, the hand size remarks came while putting on gloves. On Saturday, Sept. 2 in Houston, Trump was putting on gloves to serve food at a shelter when, per HuffPost, he stopped, turned to reporters, and said,
My hands are too big!
He then continued to put the gloves on.
This time around, in Naples on Thursday, Sept. 14, Trump was again putting on gloves as he went to help serve food in the aftermath of a hurricane. He stopped and said,
They're too small.
Then, according to New York magazine, a glove ripped, and Trump instead just told people to take a hoagie rather than hand them out. According to Business Insider, a pool report read,
Trump paused to try to put on thin white plastic gloves but struggled. His hands were apparently too, uh, large. 'They're too small,' Trump said. The glove on his right hand ripped along his thumb, exposing skin. Trump began shaking hands and passing out hoagies – or, rather, pointing at them. 'Don't forget to take one!' he implored. 'Here's a nice one!'
Isn't that helpful.
Trump has a certain fascination with the size of his own hands.
This may and may not be due to the idea that hand size is an indication of the size of a man's... masculinity. And Trump is a man with a big, easily bruised ego, so of course he's also a 12-year-old insistent that his hands are larger than average.
In fact, that very matter became a topic on a national stage during a primary debate in 2016. Then-candidate Marco Rubio had made a joke about the size of Trump's hands. So during the live debate, Trump said,
[Rubio] referred to my hands — 'if they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee.
I'll let you take a minute to stop gagging.
In case you needed a reminder that politics is often a toxic masculinity show-off game, there you go.
During the election, in March 2016, Trump diverged from an interview with The Washington Post to talk about his hand size again.
"My hands are normal hands," Trump insisted. "I was on line shaking hands with supporters and one of the supporters said, 'Mr. Trump, you have strong hands, you have good size hands.' And then another one would say, 'Oh, you have great hands, Mr. Trump. I had no idea.'"
Many have caught on to Trump's apparent insecurity over the size of his hands and have taken to use it as an insult against him.
Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, for instance, has been referring to Trump as "the short-fingered vulgarian" for decades. In a November 2015 takedown of Trump, Carter wrote,
To this day, I receive the occasional envelope from Trump. There is always a photo of him—generally a tear sheet from a magazine. On all of them he has circled his hand in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers. I almost feel sorry for the poor fellow because, to me, the fingers still look abnormally stubby.
Give this history, it's really not a surprise that Trump continues to beg everyone look at his hands and declare them gigantic. That doesn't make me any less grossed out by any of it.
