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This happened on April 3rd:

This happened two weeks later:

After three years in detention, the Egyptian-American aid worker Aya Hijazi was cleared of child abuse and human trafficking charges in Cairo on Sunday, abruptly ending a high-profile case that had become an international symbol of Egypt’s harsh crackdown on aid groups.

Coincidence? I think not. Trump made a deal: he’d praise al-Sisi and host him in the White House in return for the release of a prisoner. This is what happens when foreign governments know that the president is a weak leader who can be humiliated without consequence.

Do I believe this? Nah—though I imagine that al-Sisi did in fact make this happen as a gesture of goodwill. But where are all the right-wingers who insisted for eight years that stuff like this was clear evidence of Obama caving in to hostage-takers? I assume you all feel the same way about Trump. Don’t you?

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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