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Joanna Taylor
Apr 06, 2020
Donald Trump has been known to make some outlandish claims (there's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to his exaggerations), but there's something especially ridiculous about him saying that "all Americans" are praying for Boris Johnson.
Trump's comments came after Johnson spent the night at St Thomas's Hospital in London with "persistent" coronavirus symptoms.
He began his daily press briefing by saying:
Before we begin I want to express our nation's well wishes to Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he wages his own personal fight with the virus. All Americans are praying of him, he's a friend of mine, he's a great gentleman, a great leader. I'm hopeful and sure that he's going to be fine. He's a strong man and a strong person.
Whilst Trump's general sentiment is obvious (he just really likes Boris Johnson), humour us for a moment as we dive in and fact check this.
There are around 331 million people living in America, of whom more than 32 million don't believe in God according to research by the Pew Research Centre.
So already that's approaching 1 in 10 people who probably aren't praying for anything, let alone a foreign leader's health.
And of those people who are religious, only half say they pray every day. A quarter say it's something they're not in the habit of doing at all.
Let's not forget, also, that just because the US elected Trump, it doesn't necessarily mean they like our floppy-haired leader.
When The Independent asked New Yorkers what they thought of Boris Johnson, they variously described him as "narcissistic" an "idiot" and a "clown". So there's that.
All things considered, then, "all Americans" aren't praying for Boris Johnson. Because numbers-wise that's kind of impossible.
But it's likely that many Americans are wishing the PM well and hope he recovers soon, even if they aren't "praying". After all, this pandemic is something we can all relate to, wherever we are.
Johnson tested positive for Covid-19 ten days ago and thankfully he says he is in "good spirits" despite experiencing persistent symptoms.
The PM's daily briefings have been taken over by members of his Cabinet while he recovers. Today's coronavirus briefing will be chaired by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.