February 16, 2018

Donald Trump Is Having a Very Bad Friday

“He ignored questions about Russia and affairs with women.”

Zuma

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Hours after indictments against Russian nationals on charges of election meddling were announced, President Donald Trump finally emerged from the White House on Friday afternoon to board Marine One. Reporters on the scene shouted questions at him, and a line from their pool report sums up the kind of day the president has had: “He gave a thumbs up and seemed to yell something that we couldn’t hear over the noise from the helicopter. He ignored questions about Russia and affairs with women.”

A few hours before the indictments were announced, The New Yorker had published an explosive story outlining how Trump allegedly used financial transactions and legal help to cover up multiple affairs. Many speculated that the story was the reason Melania Trump opted not to join her husband aboard Marine One on their way to Air Force One.

Once aboard Marine One and away from reporters, Trump took out his phone to fire off a tweet emphatically claiming that the indictment announcement proved there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia. 

Trump’s tweet appears to misread the indictment, which revealed that some of the Russians had been in contact with “unwitting individuals” from the Trump campaign. As Mother Jones predicted earlier, the president’s declaration of vindication is a misinterpretation of the fact that these initial charges don’t include collusion. (In announcing the indictment, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was careful to emphasize that no Americans were implicated in the scheme in the current indictment, but did not preclude further indictments that would include Americans.) The tweet was also significant in that Trump characterized Russian interference efforts as an “anti-US campaign,” after having previously dismissed them as a hoax.

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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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