Hey Donald, Will You Self-Fund In the General Election Too?

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Megan McArdle says Donald Trump will never run as a third-party candidate for president because he’s not rich enough. It costs upwards of a billion dollars to run for president these days, and Trump doesn’t have that kind of scratch. So what’s he going to do? Raise it from billionaires after spending the entire primary claiming that anyone who raises money from billionaires is corrupt and crooked?

Well, this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, so sure. He might very well do that. Or he might run a cheap campaign designed not to win, but to take revenge on whoever stole the nomination from him.

Still, point taken. The whole self-funding schtick won’t work in a general election. But here’s the curious thing: it won’t work if he runs as the Republican nominee, either. He’s going to have to raise money from rich people. So why haven’t any of the other candidates asked about this? Whenever he goes into his self-funding spiel, why doesn’t one of them ask if he’ll promise to self-fund in the general election? If nothing else, it would be interesting to watch Trump try to slither his way out of it.

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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.

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