February 7, 2018

Trump Has Some Thoughts on the Stock Market That I Don’t Understand

The president doesn’t seem to know how the markets function.

Melanie Bell/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered his first take on the recent turmoil on Wall Street, sending out a perplexing tweet that appeared to imply that investors (maybe) or the markets themselves (maybe) were willfully ignoring the positive economic news for which he frequently takes credit.

The tweet is the president’s first public reference to the Dow’s dramatic plunge of more than 1,000 points Monday. The drop, which followed major losses over the preceding week, happened to come as Trump was in Ohio delivering a speech touting the country’s economic health. 

Trump’s thoughts on the stock market Wednesday mark a sharp break from the president’s habit of boasting about rising stock prices. The tweet drew ridicule on social media:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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