Why Does Scott Pruitt Need a Bulletproof Desk, a Bulletproof Car, and $3 Million in 24/7 Security?

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Donald Trump stands by his man:

Death threats! My goodness. Well, let’s see them:

This is shocking. The president of the United States is just baldly lying? But that’s not all. He’s not even putting his heart into it:

Are you following Philippe Reines on Twitter? You should be. Reines is a famously, um, colorful guy who’s a longtime Hillary Clinton aide, and after she lost he took to Twitter and decided he didn’t give a shit what he said anymore. This naturally makes him great fun to read.

Oh, and as long as we’re on the subject of Pruitt, Michael Grunwald has a long piece in Politico making the point that Pruitt hasn’t actually accomplished much. He’s certainly good at self-promotion, but the fact is that rolling back EPA rules takes years of careful, detailed work. Will Pruitt pay attention long enough to do any of that? We’ll see. But so far it doesn’t seem like it. The press coverage seems to be what he’s really after.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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