Oh Nothing, Just the President Calling for More People to Be Jailed

Donald Trump

Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post via ZUMA Wire

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

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fun and safe holiday! I spent most of the last few weeks offline—driving, and running, and reading (let me be the last person to recommend Furious Hours), and just generally trying to forget how absolutely insane it is that this is how the president of the United States communicates with the world on a daily basis:

Those are from this morning. The “Witch Hunt” is the impeachment push and the Russia and Ukraine scandals. The “Dirty (Filthy) Cops” are, presumably, the FBI agents who investigated a not insignificant number of Trump associates. A recent DOJ inspector general report faulted the FBI’s handling of a warrant to surveil one former Trump aide, but six other former Trump aides were convicted or pleaded guilty as part of the Russia probe. It’s tempting to try to unpack this further—actually, 9/11 was the crime of the century, Mr. President—and to explain why it’s bad and weird for the president to say that people in his government should be jailed for treason “(and more),” but I still have holiday brain, and if you’re reading this post, you probably don’t need to be told all of that.

Still, every once in a while the social media algorithms take a break from their frustrating idiosyncrasies and offer true revelation. And this, from my colleague Ben Dreyfuss, is one of those moments:

obama screenshot

 

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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