A Democracy Drive Thread
Ask him about anything — ISIS, taxes, courts, drones, renewables, infrastructure, social media — and he is, by his own account, the single greatest living expert on it. A running catalog of a man who has never met a subject he didn’t already know more about than everyone who studies it.
There is a supercut waiting to be made of this — and plenty already exist. Across decades, on subject after subject, Donald Trump has claimed not just competence but supremacy: that nobody, anywhere, in some cases “in the history of the world,” knows more than he does. This page catalogs the claims in his own words, with sources. Taken one at a time they are punchlines; taken together they are a diagnosis — the bottomless certainty of a man who mistakes not having studied something for the subject being simple, and who cannot conceive that anyone, expert or general or scientist, might know more than he does. (For the longer rambling versions — the nuclear / “good genes” monologue, “I know words, I have the best words” — see The Trump Lexicon.)
At a November 2015 rally, promising to wipe out the militant group — he would, he said, know the fight better than the U.S. commanders who wage it.
“I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.”
November 2015.
“I know more about courts than any human being on Earth.”
January 2016 — one boast with some evidence behind it, given how many suits he has been party to.
“Who knows more about lawsuits than I do? I’m the king.”
June 2016. His casino and hotel companies filed for bankruptcy protection multiple times.
“I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me.”
May 2016 — said while refusing to release his own tax returns.
“Nobody knows more about taxes than I do, maybe in the history of the world.”
March 2016, as he built a campaign around tariffs and trade wars.
“Nobody knows more about trade than me.”
1999 — the earliest line in this catalog, proof the reflex long predates the politics.
“Nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I’m the biggest contributor.”
From his June 16, 2015 campaign-announcement speech.
“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
July 2016 — narrated, as he often does, in the third person.
“As a builder, nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump.”
December 2018.
“Technology — nobody knows more about technology than me.”
One of the more specific entries in the documented record of his self-declared expertise.
“I know more about drones than anybody.”
April 2016 — from the same man who says the noise from wind turbines causes cancer.
“I know more about renewables than any human being on Earth.”
The line from his July 2016 Republican convention speech — the thesis of this whole catalog in a single sentence.
“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”
November 2015.
“I understand social media. I understand the power of Twitter. I understand the power of Facebook maybe better than almost anybody, based on my results, right?”
October 2012 — before the politics, when the number that mattered to him was Nielsen.
“I know more about people who get ratings than anyone.”