October 10, 2020

Trump Hosts Yet Another Campaign Rally at the White House

Remember when stuff like this just didn’t happen?

Trump delivering a campaign speech from the White House balcony to supporters on Saturday.Erin Scott/CNP/ZUMA

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Barely over a week after President Donald Trump tested positive and was hospitalized for COVID-19, he spoke for 17 minutes from a balcony, maskless, to roughly 500 supporters packed tightly beneath him on the White House’s South Lawn. 

The event, which gave the president a desperately-sought venue after days away from the public, had the same appearance, tone, and apparent goals of any campaign rally. Even so, White House spokesperson Judd Deere had earlier insisted to reporters that it was “an official event,” not a campaign event, and that no campaign staff would be involved. 

The maneuvering called to mind how Trump used the White House, a federal government facility, during August’s Republican National Convention as a backdrop for several highly choreographed and video streamed segments, and as the site of his keynote address accepting renomination by the party. Federal law generally prohibits the use of government property or resources by officials for campaigning or other purely political activity. Trump did it anyway.

Sarturday’s event was hosted by Blexit, a group boosting African American Trump supporters that was cofounded by Candace Owens. Blexit paid for the travel of some audience members, according to ABC News.

Trump’s words to the admiring crowd left little ambiguity about whether he was conducting politics. “We gotta vote these people into oblivion,” he said. “Into oblivion. Gotta get rid of ’em. So bad for our country.” 

“This is the single most important election in the history of our country. Get out and vote, and I love you,” he added, to a crowd that regularly interrupted his remarks with cheers and applause. 

In August, Walter Shaub, the director of the United States Office of Government Ethics from 2013 and 2017, railed against Trump’s Republican National Convention speech from the White House, warning then that it was “a harbinger” of things to come. 

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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.

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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.

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