July 29, 2015

Here’s Your Reminder That Donald Trump’s 2 Sons Are Also Big-Game Hunters

On Tuesday, an American dentist admitted to paying $50,000 to hunt and kill Cecil the lion, a beloved animal and popular tourist attraction in Zimbabwe. News of the killing sparked swift condemnation on social media, with many calling for Walter Palmer to be extradited to Zimbabwe to stand trial.

Amid the outrage, photos quickly resurfaced of Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, posing with the dead bodies of several exotic animals, including an African elephant and leopard, they had previously hunted for sport.

 

When the photos initially emerged online back in 2012, the Trump brothers staunchly defended themselves, taking to Twitter to “make no apologies.”

“In some parts its over populated. Bottom line with out hunters $ there wouldn’t be much left of africa. Eco is nice but no $,” one tweet from Trump Jr. read.

The public reminder is just the latest relic in Trump’s past to stir controversy. This week alone, the New York Times dug up a series of depositions in which the GOP frontrunner for president once told a female lawyer she was “disgusting” for pumping milk for her then three-month-old daughter. The day prior, the Daily Beast published a story resurfacing an old assertion from his former wife claiming he had once raped her.

Update, August 2, 2015: Donald Trump defended his sons with the following statement: “My sons love to hunt. They are members of the NRA, very proudly. I am a big believer in the second amendment. My sons are hunters. Eric is a hunter. He puts it on a par with golf – ahead of golf. And my other son is a hunter. They are great marksmen, great shots. I like to play golf.”

 

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We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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