The Trump Files: Trump Finds a Silver Lining in an Ebola Outbreak

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This post was originally published as part of “The Trump Files“—a collection of telling episodes, strange but true stories, and curious scenes from the life of our current president—on October 21, 2016.

Donald is a famous germophobe who hates shaking hands so much that he called the practice “one of the curses of American society” in one of his books. “I happen to be a clean-hands freak,” he told The Hill earlier this year. So it’s no wonder that the Ebola outbreak of 2014 appealed to him on at least one level.

When Donald wasn’t heralding the imminent worldwide demise of hand-shaking, though, he was having an epic, monthslong Twitter freakout over the Ebola scare.

Needless to say, the United States would be well equipped to calmly handle any medical emergencies under a Trump administration.

 

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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