In Latest Attack on Washington Post, Trump Takes a Crack at Headline Writing

It’s never too late to change careers.

Dennis Brack/ZUMA

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In a presidency marked by unprecedented chaos, President Donald Trump’s animosity for “fake news”—accurate reporting by mainstream news outlets that typically include the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and NBC—has been one of the few constants.

In recent days, Trump has taken to specifically targeting Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos for stories in the Washington Post, which has won major awards for its reporting on the Trump administration. (Many of Trump’s tweets are wrong: Amazon does not own the paper; Bezos does.) While the president has attempted to couch his attacks on Amazon with the false claim that the company takes advantage of the US Postal Service, it’s clear that Trump’s anger lies with the paper.

On Thursday, Trump made that even more apparent. He also may have inadvertently revealed another reason behind his latest revenge obsession: his private ambitions to become a newspaper editor. 

If true, Mother Jones invites the president to our robust Slack headline channel, where editors would be happy to workshop the far-too-wordy, nonsensical headline proposed above.

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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 find 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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