July 10, 2019

Megan Rapinoe to Donald Trump: Your Message Is Excluding People

The US women’s national soccer team co-captain also reiterated her stance on a White House visit.

Megan Rapinoe, on the heels of leading the United States to its fourth Women’s World Cup title, delivered a searing message for Donald Trump on Tuesday, telling the president that he needed to “do better for everyone,” including people like Rapinoe and minorities.

The US women’s soccer co-captain had been sitting for a one-on-one interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who noted the likelihood of Trump watching her appearance. “What is your message to the president?” he asked.

After taking a moment to ponder, Rapinoe turned directly to the camera and said: “I think that I would say that your message is excluding people. You’re excluding me. You’re excluding people that look like me. You’re excluding people of color. You’re excluding, you know, Americans that maybe support you.”

“You have an incredible responsibility as the chief of this country to take care of every single person and you need to do better for everyone,” she added. 

As for a White House visit, Rapinoe reiterated her stance that she had no interest in such an event. “I would not go and every teammate I talked to would not go.”

“I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked hard to build and the things that we fight for and the way that we live our lives—I don’t think we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration.”

 

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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.

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