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In the absence of a vaccine, enough ventilators to contain the coronavirus, or a president capable of putting the country’s needs ahead of his own, it’s tempting to dismiss Trump’s press conferences as the propaganda pageants they are—and back slowly away from his Twitter account, a feeding ground for the world’s largest ego.

Can we? Mute @realDonaldTrump for a minute? No. We’d miss too many high-impact statements that have consequences in our lives, whether we cringe at his tweets or not, from a president who one conservative New York Times columnist charitably calls a “sociopath,” a designation more and more experts are making.

Even if you’re not in the diagnosis business, I do wonder if this country’s spirits wouldn’t be lifted by watching Trump undergo a devastating brush with something more consequential, ruthless, and upending than anything else: a copy edit.

Here, in the name of national security and public hygiene, is an emergency deployment of the finest tool Mother Jones has available: the annotation feature. Click on the highlights below, like this, to instantly improve the president’s tweets and our country’s health.

96-0 in the United States Senate. Congratulations AMERICA!

“My Administration is actively planning the next phase in an all-out war against this horrible virus.”

I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude! #MAGA

I just signed the CARES Act, the single biggest economic relief package in American History – twice as large as any relief bill ever enacted. At $2.2 Trillion Dollars, this bill will deliver urgently-needed relief for our nation’s families, workers, and businesses. #CARESAct🇺🇸

General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford

Invoke “P” means Defense Production Act!

….I have been packed all day with meetings, I have no time for stupidity. We’re working around the clock to KEEP AMERICA SAFE!

On the recommendation of the White House CoronaVirus Task Force, and upon consultation with the Governor’s of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, I have asked the @CDCgov to issue a strong Travel Advisory, to be administered by the Governors, in consultation with the….

For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect….

If the Fake News Opposition Party is pushing, with all their might, the fact that President Trump “ignored early warnings about the threat,” then why did Media & Dems viciously criticize me when I instituted a Travel Ban on China? They said “early & not necessary.” Corrupt Media!

The Lamestream Media wants us to fail. That will NEVER happen!

If additional literature from @realDonaldTrump needs a constitutional touch-up, send it to styleguide@motherjones.com and we’ll update this post with a few of the finest. #MAGAZINE 🇺🇸

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

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