February 21, 2017

Can We Believe Anything That Comes Out of the White House Press Office?

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Behold our White House press office at work:

Sunday: White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells reporters that President Trump “played a couple of holes” today.

Monday: Pro golfer Rory McIlroy says he played 18 holes with Trump. “He probably shot around 80. He’s a decent player for a guy in his 70’s!”

Monday evening: The White House releases a new statement: “He intended to play a few holes and decided to play longer.”

Obviously this doesn’t matter in any cosmic sense. Who cares how much golf Trump plays? But it’s yet another indication that the White House press operation will blithely lie about anything. Is there really any point to having a press office these days?

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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 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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