January 23, 2017

Today in Trump

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Here’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press this morning, asking White House “counselor” Kellyanne Conway why President Trump’s press secretary started his first day in office by going out and lying repeatedly on national TV. Her answer: Sean Spicer was merely providing “alternative facts.”

I don’t want to pick on Todd, who pressed Conway hard on this, but it was almost painful watching him try so hard to avoid using the obvious word here. Over and over, he wanted to ask why Spicer had lied, which would be the usual way of phrasing his question. On a couple of occasions he even stuttered a bit while he searched for another word. He just wouldn’t say it. So what’s the best response to Conway’s dogged unwillingness to answer questions in even a debatably truthful way? I think Jamelle Bouie has it right:

There’s a limit to how much TV networks should tolerate staffers who have a consistent history of viewing airtime merely as a way of promoting lies. Kellyanne Conway blew past that limit before Trump even took office. It’s hard to see what the value of having her on a news show is at this point.

In other developments, hold on to your jaw—or maybe your stomach—as you watch Trump blow a kiss to FBI Director James Comey and then give him a big hug:

Jeet Heer has the proper take on this:

Trump won because of Comey. Period. Without Comey’s letter of October 28, Trump would have lost by 8 million popular votes and a few dozen electoral votes. And Comey knew exactly what he was doing. Published reports suggest that literally every single person he talked to advised him that writing his letter would be an unprecedented violation of rules against letting ongoing investigations interfere with elections.

Finally, in other news from Kellyanne Conway, we learned officially what’s been obvious for a long time: Donald Trump is never going to release his tax returns.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You mentioned a couple hundred thousand people who sent in petitions on health care, talking about health care, you also have more than 200,000 who petitioned the White House calling on President Trump to release his full tax returns with all information needed to verify emolument’s clause compliance. Whenever 100,000 petition, that triggers a White House response. So, what is the White House response?

CONWAY: The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns. We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him.

The “audit” was just a ruse all along. I don’t think that will surprise anyone with a room-temperature IQ, and I guess Trump decided to stop playing the game.

1,458 days to go. I can hardly wait for the Spicer/Conway description of Trump’s tax cuts and Trump’s replacement for Obamacare.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate