January 12, 2016

Matt Lauer Asked if Obama Could Imagine Trump Giving a State of the Union. Here’s His Response.

Matt Lauer asked President Barack Obama if he could imagine Donald Trump giving a State of the Union address. His response:

“Well, I can imagine it in a Saturday Night [Live] skit.”

Snap.

Obama also dismissed Trump’s chances of winning the presidency.

“I’m pretty confident that the overwhelming majority of Americans are looking for the kind of politics that does feed our hopes and not our fears, that does work together and doesn’t try to divide, that isn’t looking for simplistic solutions and scapegoating but looks for us buckling down and figuring out, ‘How do we make things work for the next generation?'”

The president went on to offer a preview of what will be his final State of the Union tonight: “Part of what I want to do in this last address is to remind people: You know what, we’ve got a lot of good things going for us, and if we can get our politics right, it turns out that we’re not as divided on the ideological spectrum as people make us out to be.”

He’s right: America is in pretty good shape.

Watch:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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