What’s Trump Doing While Washington Honors John McCain?

“Studying.”

President Donald Trump holds up a list of his administration's accomplishments while speaking at a GOP fundraiser at the Carmel Country Club in in Charlotte, N.C., on Friday.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

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All of political Washington seems to be gathered at the National Cathedral for a memorial service honoring late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Saturday morning. But President Donald Trump was not invited. So what’s he doing instead? 

During an event on Friday afternoon in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump said he would be spending the long weekend studying federal worker compensation, after he caused a firestorm the previous day by notifying lawmakers that he planned to freeze all federal worker pay raises.

“I’m going to be doing a little work over the weekend,” he said. “I’m going to be studying the federal workers in Washington that you have been reading so much about, people don’t want to give them the increase, they haven’t had one in a long time, I said I’m going to study that over the weekend…Good time to study, Labor Day.”

Trump has no public events on his schedule for the entire weekend, so maybe he was serious.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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