August 27, 2015

Donald Trump: The Bible Is Great, But, Um, Let’s Not Get Into Specifics

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As a blogger, it’s hard not to love Donald Trump. Here’s the latest, in an interview with Mark Halperin and John Heilemann:

I’m wondering what one or two of your most favorite Bible verses are and why.

Well, I wouldn’t want to get into it because to me that’s very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible it’s very personal. So I don’t want to get into verses, I don’t want to get into—the Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.

Even to cite a verse that you like?

No, I don’t want to do that.

Are you an Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy?

Uh, probably….equal. I think it’s just an incredible….the whole Bible is an incredible….I joke….very much so. They always hold up The Art of the Deal, I say it’s my second favorite book of all time. But, uh, I just think the Bible is just something very special.

OK, it’s not only Trump I love. Props also to Heilemann for asking Trump if he’s an OT guy or an NT guy. Who talks about the Bible that way?

We’ve seen this schtick from Trump before, of course. He’s stunningly ignorant, and routinely refuses to answer whenever someone asks about a factual detail more than an inch below the surface. Needless to say, he refuses because he doesn’t know, but he always pretends it’s for some other reason. “I don’t want to insult anyone by naming names,” he’ll say, as if this isn’t his entire stock in trade. Or, in this case, “It’s personal,” as if he’s a guy who leads a deep personal life that he never talks about.

The interesting thing is that this schtick also shows how lazy he is. It’s been evident for several days that someone was eventually going to ask him for his favorite Bible verse, but he couldn’t be bothered to bone up even a little bit in order to have one on tap. Ditto for everything else. Even when he says something that’s going to raise obvious questions the next day, he never bothers to learn anything about the subject. I guess he figures he’s got people for that.

Of course, there is an advantage to handling things this way. By shutting down the Bible talk completely, he guarantees he’ll never have to talk about it again. I mean, today it’s Bible verses, tomorrow somebody might want him to name the Ten Commandments. And since it’s pretty obvious that he hasn’t cracked open the Bible in decades, that could get hairy pretty fast. Better to shut it down right away.

POSTSCRIPT: So which is Trump? OT or NT? I expect that he admires the OT God more. That’s a deity who knows what he wants and doesn’t put up with any PC nonsense about it. Plus they built a lot of stuff in the Old Testament: towers, walls, arks, temples, etc. That would appeal to Trump. On the other hand, the New Testament has all those annoying lessons about the meek inheriting the earth, rich men and needles, turning the other cheek, and a bunch of other advice that Trump has no time for.

So: Old Testament. Definitely Old Testament.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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