An Even More Deranged Monday Morning of Tweeting for President Trump

Including the his promotion of a fake image of Nancy Pelosi wearing a hijab.

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Monday, President Donald Trump’s Twitter account kicked off an unusually active round of inflammatory and offensive activity that saw multiple falsehoods, typos, and cheap shots against his Democratic presidential rivals. 

In what could be considered the most appalling moment, the president retweeted a fake, poorly Photoshopped image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wearing traditional Muslim clothing while standing in front of the Iranian flag. “The corrupted Dems trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue,” the tweet read, echoing the false and incendiary accusation among the right that Democratic leaders looking to rein in Trump’s war powers are somehow un-American and puppets of the Iranian regime. 

Trump’s decision to further amplify the accusation came days after Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) on Friday was forced to apologize for claiming that Democrats critical of Trump’s foreign policy are “in love with terrorists.”

But this was only the beginning. Trump also lashed out at mounting evidence that Qassim Soleimani, the top Iranian military leader targeted by Trump’s military strike earlier this month, may not have posed the “imminent threat” on American lives the White House had initially claimed in the immediate aftermath of Soleimani’s death. That original tweet misspelled “imminent” as “eminent.” 

Elsewhere in Monday’s tweet frenzy, Trump went after the 2020 Democratic hopefuls, seizing on reports of tension between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren while conferring on Michael Bloomberg the disparaging nickname “Mini Mike.” Further attacks against the billionaire candidate also included the brazenly false claim that Trump has been the one to protect pre-existing conditions in health care reform. (That single tweet contained such a thick layer of lies we broke them all down here.)

The news that Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) was dropping out of the presidential race inspired still more tweeting.  Just minutes after Booker’s announcement, Trump combined both sarcasm and sheer meanness when he announced that he can “rest easy tonight.”

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate