August 17, 2017

Trump Swiftly Condemns Barcelona Terror Attack. Charlottesville? Not So Much.

He then promoted a fake story about mass murdering Muslims.

Matt Cardy/ZUMA

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With pertinent details still unfolding, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday afternoon to condemn a terrorist attack in Barcelona, where a white van plowed through the popular tourist street of Las Ramblas, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than 50 people. 

The president’s response to the Barcelona attack was far swifter than his delayed response to the white supremacist clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday and his initial failure to flatly denounce white nationalists. Instead, Trump blamed “many sides” for the violence.

Amid intense criticism over his equivocal remarks, Trump was forced to issue a stronger statement rejecting hate groups two days after the “Unite the Right” rally, where Heather Heyer was killed by a suspected white supremacist who drove through a crowd of counter-protesters.

By Tuesday, however, the president returned to his assertion that there were multiple sides to the violence, all but defending some white nationalists as “very fine people.” He also lashed out at reporters when asked why he did condemn white supremacists from the start, claiming he didn’t have all the “facts” to do so on Saturday.

“I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct,” he said. “Unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”

Trump later followed up his condemnation Thursday with a second tweet that perhaps explains why the president was so quick to react to Barcelona and not Charlottesville. It should be noted that the story he cites below is fake.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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