Here's where Trump might have gotten his bizarre claim that Seoul has 38 million people

During the White House briefing on coronavirus, President Donald Trump was drawn into a discussion of South Korea, which reported its first coronavirus case at the same time as the United States but has been vastly more successful at controlling the spread of the disease.

In an attempt to make himself appear knowledgeable, Trump rattled off a statistic he "knows" about South Korea: that the capital city, Seoul, is home to 38 million people. Except...that's incorrect.

It is unclear where Trump got the figure of 38 million people. But one user on Twitter offered an intriguing theory: He may have previously run a Google search and mistakenly confused Wikipedia's entry for Seoul's elevation — 38 m, or meters — with 38 million people.

Regardless, if Trump's reply was meant to persuade Americans that he was informed about foreign countries and the spread of coronavirus, this is unlikely to do so.