January 4, 2019

We Annotated the White House’s Wildly Misleading Border Security Briefing to Congress

It’s about as accurate as you’d expect.

Evan Vucci/AP

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On Thursday, with the government shutdown approaching its third week, the White House summoned congressional leaders to the White House for a border security briefing. The White House press office griped on Friday that members of Congress “did not want to hear the presentation.” But Donald Trump was not deterred.

The president directed his staff to hand-deliver the slideshow to every member of Congress. The White House also shared the presentation with reporters. The eight-slide presentation is an exercise in how to mislead the public with statistics. Below is an annotated version.

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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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