Rubio, Trump's New Fight: the Size of Trump's Hands

'I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5-foot-2'
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 1, 2016 7:00 PM CST
Rubio, Trump's New Fight: the Size of Trump's Hands
Donald Trump's hands were large enough to comfortably take a Tic Tac from Marco Rubio during the CBS News Republican presidential debate at the Peace Center, Saturday, Feb. 13.   (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

The size of Donald Trump's hands has been a thing for decades, stretching back to the days when Graydon Carter dubbed him a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy magazine. In his November editor's letter for Vanity Fair, Carter wrote that over the years, and as recently as last year, Trump would send him the occasional photo, "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." Those photos did little to convince Carter, and now Marco Rubio has apparently taken up the mantle. Politico quotes Rubio as saying the following on Sunday: "[Trump is] like 6-2, which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5-2. Have you seen his hands? You know what they say about men with small hands—you can’t trust them."

While in Ohio on Tuesday, Trump swung back, trotting out one of his favorite adjectives in the process: "Actually I’m 6-3, not 6-2—but he said I had small hands. ... I never heard—I never heard that one before. I've always had people say, 'Donald, you have the most beautiful hands.'" In noting Rubio's new tactic, the Washington Post writes he "may be on to something." It reports on recent polling that identified the type of attack that would be most likely to raise serious doubts about Trump among GOP voters. The winner: attacks framing Trump as an "egomaniac and entertainer that cares more about gaining power and fame than helping the country." More policy-minded attacks—think immigration, climate change, big oil—were far less effective. (See previous Trump-Rubio slams, including one about "wet pants," here. And John Oliver's tirade on Trump also addresses his hand size.)

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