March 29, 2020

More Than 2,000 Americans Have Died of the Coronavirus. Trump Is Tweeting About His TV Ratings.

Can he get any more out of touch with reality?

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

More than 2,000 people in the United States are dead and at least 135,000 have confirmed cases of COVID-19. But President Donald Trump has decided to use his Sunday to tweet about his TV ratings. His White House press briefings are as popular as The Bachelor finale and Monday Night Football, he boasted in a series of tweets on Sunday:

Even for Trump, Sunday’s tweets feel exponentially out of touch with reality. 

For weeks now, Trump’s daily press briefings have attracted an average of 8.5 million viewers on cable news. He uses the briefings to go on rants attacking the media and political opponents, and to share misinformation. News organizations, including Mother Jones, have urged TV networks to stop airing his press conferences live. Seattle’s NPR station KUOW made the decision to stop airing the briefings after observing a “pattern of false information and exaggeration.”

Only a reality TV president would brag about his popularity while the country is in the middle of a public health crisis. And, as my colleague pointed out in this ingenious video, Trump’s denial of the gravity of the situation sounds like the first act of pretty much every disaster movie ever written.

 

 

 

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate