Five months after Donald Trump used his time on the national debate stage to tell America that his hands – and therefore a certain other body part – were properly sized, the controversy has finally been resolved. Trump does, in fact, have unusually small hands. 15th percentile small. After numerous attempts to measure Trump’s hands – including one in the Post that analyzed photographs of the candidate – a journalist from The Hollywood Reporter cracked the case.
Near the exit of Madame Tussauds wax museum in New York hangs a bronze cast of Trump’s hand. It’s been there since 1997, after the museum’s artists took impressions of Trump’s body parts to create a wax figure of him for their collection. The Hollywood Reporter measured his hand to be 7.25 inches from his wrist to the tip of his middle finger. (You can print out a life-sized outline of Trump’s hand here, and see how you stack up.)
According to data from Ergonomics Center of North Carolina, the average American male’s hand is 7.61 inches long. Trump’s hand sits at the 15th percentile mark. That is, 85 percent of American men have larger hands than Trump. As do a third of women. But bear in mind, that is the 15th percentile among all American men. Trump istall – about 6-foot-3, half a foot taller than the 5-foot-9 average among American men, according to the Center for Disease Control. If Trump were compared to men of his stature rather than the public at large, his hands would comparatively be even smaller.
This whole controversy started at the end of February when Marco Rubio, at a rally for his presidential campaign in Virginia, said of Trump: “He’s like 6-2, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who’s 5-2”. He added, “And you know what they say about men with small hands.” The audience roared.
Three days later, at one of the final Republican presidential debates, Trump shotback: “Nobody has ever hit my hands. I’ve never heard of this.” And of course, he defended the size of his penis as well: “I guarantee you, there’s no problem. I guarantee you.” While the media will likely never be able to determine the veracity of Trump’s claim about his penis, at least the issue of the hands is settled. The Americans Against Insecure Billionaires With Tiny Hands PAC, which originally filed with the FEC in March as the Trump Has Tiny Hands PAC, can rest easy. Its “Release the Measurements” petition is now moot.
