February 25, 2018

The Trump Campaign Is Trying to Raise Money Off the Parkland Shooting. Here’s What It Sent Supporters.

Really.

Ron Sachs/ZUMA Press

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For the campaign to re-elect Donald Trump and Mike Pence, a photo of a 17-year-old Parkland shooting survivor in the hospital is apparently exactly what’s needed to rake in donations. 

In a “weekly newsletter” sent out on Friday, the campaign included a picture of Trump and the First Lady visiting the survivor and her family. The newsletter boasted that the president had visited victims and first responders and “met incredible people they will never forget,” as the Huffington Post reported. At the bottom of the email, the campaign asks supporters to donate to Trump’s re-election campaign, or buy Trump merchandise.

The fundraising newsletter also claimed that Trump is “engaging in an important national conversation” to stop future school shootings: “President Trump is taking steps toward banning gun bump stocks and strengthening background checks for gun purchasers. The President has made his intent very clear: ‘making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority.'”

But so far, the president’s plans seem to consist mostly of talking about arming teachers: On Saturday, he tweeted that “Armed Educators” could protect students because they “love” them—and that guns, along with yearly bonuses for the teachers who wield them, would be a “very inexpensive deterrent.” As my colleague Tim Murphy explained:

It’s not clear what “inexpensive” means in the context of a national program to pay teachers more money for packing heat, nor is it clear what “Up to States” means. But no matter how many times Trump flogs it, the NRA myth of the “good guy with a gun” is still just a myth. That he’s pushing it anyway doesn’t bode well for the prospects of a good-faith debate about gun control.

While Trump has said he supports legislation to tighten background checks, he’s failed to provide details. And his proposed budget reportedly cuts funding for the background check system by millions of dollars. 

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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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