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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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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