President Donald Trump bragged Monday about sending U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to airport security checkpoints, claiming the idea was as brilliant as the “discovery” of paper clips. (Watch a clip of the bizarre moment below.)

In remarks to the media before boarding Air Force One, Trump swiftly took credit for the plan to supplement airport staffing amid the partial government shutdown as Transportation Security Administration agents work without pay or quit and call out sick, leaving travelers frustrated with increasing wait times.

“That was mine,” said Trump of the idea, which reportedly stemmed from a Fox News caller late last week.

He proceeded to make a bizarre comparison. “That was like the paper clip. You know the story of the paper clip? 182 years ago, a man discovered the paper clip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ ICE was my idea.”

COLLINS: Who's idea was it to put ICE in airports?TRUMP: Mine. That was like the paperclip. Do you know the story of the paperclip? 182 years ago a man discovered the paperclip. It was so simple. And everybody that looked it thought, 'Why didn't I think of that?' ICE was my idea.

Trump is mostly wrong about when the paper clip was invented — and his estimates have varied wildly.

The first bent-wire paper clip was patented by Samuel B. Fay in 1867, or 159 years ago, according to EarlyOfficeMuseum.com. The iconic “Gem” paper clip design seen in most office supply stores today — which was never patented in the U.S. — surfaced around 1892, 134 years ago.

But in remarks at a White House event last year, Trump claimed that someone became a “very rich person” when they came up with the idea for the paper clip in 1817, well over two centuries ago.

He also claimed at a 2024 rally that someone “came up with a paper clip” roughly 129 years prior. (This is somewhat true, per EarlyOfficeMuseum.com, although the “utility paper clip” patented that year is much more obscure than the previously introduced “Gem” design.)

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