November 3, 2019

Trump Is in Denial About Getting Booed Again, This Time at a UFC Fight

Also not accepting reality? Fox & Friends.

Evan Vucci/AP

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Depending on where you were standing in Madison Square Garden last night when President Donald Trump walked in for a UFC fight, you might have heard overwhelming boos from the crowd around you. Or a smattering of cheers and applause. Or just blasting music from overhead.

However, following the deeply satisfying videos of the boos that greeted Trump’s appearance at Game 5 of the World Series last Sunday—and the wall–to–wall media coverage, including our own—determining the precise mix of boos versus cheers in the crowd is now a high-stakes feat of political analysis, and the verdicts following Trump’s UFC appearance are mixed.

Here are some videos that you can judge for yourself:

The president, for his part, has decided that entering the Garden was a “little bit like walking into a Trump rally,” he tweeted. “Great energy,” he added.

And, accordingly, the Fox News spin machine whirred to life this morning to guard the ego of their number-one viewer. “The president got a big reception,” Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth put it. “This is a crowd that appreciates the brawler style of a brawler president.”

“There are some media outlets saying they heard mostly boos,” cohost Ed Henry chimed in. “This has become so juvenile. If you actually listen to the video and the audio, there clearly were a ton of cheers.”

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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?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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