April 26, 2020

The Latest Injection of Trump Tweets Won’t Cure His Embarrassment

Chris Kleponis/Zuma

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As Americans continued to roll their eyes at his comments about injecting disinfectant to kill the coronavirus, President Donald Trump mainlined a fresh dose of misinformation and grievance into his Twitter stream yesterday.

First, he continued to try to relitigate his widely mocked press briefing on last Thursday, claiming his widely mocked suggestions were not directed at Dr. Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, but William Bryan, the Department of Homeland Security undersecretary for science and technology.     

Trump did ask Bryan whether UV light could be used to “hit the body” or somehow used “inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.” But he also addressed Birx directly when he said, “I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can apply light and heat to cure…Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?”

Next, Trump suggested that he’d soured on press briefings because the media “refuses to report the truth of facts accurately.” (By the way, the quotes in the previous paragraph are verbatim from the White House website.) Nearly a month ago, he’d bragged that his daily briefings had made him “a ratings hit.” Now Republicans are worried that his briefings are hurting them politically; one senator told the New York Times “the nightly sessions were so painful he could not bear watching any longer.”

The president, who spent weeks pushing an untested malaria drug as a COVID-19 treatment, then prescribed a dose of “common sense.” (On April 5, he’d touted hydroxychloroquine yet again, saying  “What do I know? I’m not a doctor. I’m not a doctor. But I have common sense.”)

Finally, Trump claimed that the Democrats and media have falsely accused him of calling the coronavirus pandemic “a Hoax.”

Let’s look at the transcript from the president’s rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on February 28 (italics mine):

So far we have lost nobody to coronavirus in the United States. Nobody. And it doesn’t mean we won’t and we are totally prepared. It doesn’t mean we won’t. But think of it, you hear 35 and 40,000 people [dying from flu] and we’ve lost nobody. You wonder if the press is in hysteria mode… Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it… And this is their new hoax. But you know we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We have 15 people in this massive country and because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.

If you read that and conclude the president was minimizing the seriousness of an impending public health crisis by accusing the media and Democrats of exaggerating its dangers, perhaps you don’t recognize sarcasm.

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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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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.

payment methods

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