Trump claims he made up the phrase 'prime the pump' and he absolutely did not

2025-04-28 01:22:32admin

In yet another outlandish transcript of a Donald Trump interview, the president made yet another outlandish claim.

Trump spoke to The Economist in an interview released Thursday, and the transcript of the Q&A covered the new president's economic strategy, his known stance on immigration, and an extremely weird aside wherein he takes credit for a centuries-old phrase.

When discussing his tax plan, Trump uses the phrase, 'prime the pump' then proceeds to ask the interviewer whether they had heard the phrase before. Even though the interview says yes they had heard this known phrase, Trump continues to take credit for coining it.

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Here's the back and forth, with the interviewer in bold:

But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

It’s…Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.

If you're thinking, "Yeah, I've heard that phrase so many times before," you are far from alone. It only took a short while before bewildered reactions started pouring in, all expressing disbelief and dismay.

Tweet may have been deleted

And Trump can't lie about word usage without having the internet's friendly and feisty dictionary stepping in to give a correction. Merriam-Webster's ever-vigilant Twitter account calmly explained in a series of tweets that the phrase comes from the 1800s.