May 11, 2017

Trump Thinks He Invented the Phrase “Prime the Pump”

Bill Ingalls/NASA via ZUMA

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Jonah Goldberg points out the following Trump timeline:

2016: “Well, sometimes you have to prime the pump,” he says. “So sometimes in order to get jobs going and the country going, because, look, we’re at 1% growth.”

Late 2016: “We are also going to lower our business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 15 percent. That’s going to be big. Going to prime the pump. Got to prime the pump.“

Today: “We have to prime the pump….Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago.”

This is not good. “What is the right way to interpret Trump’s statement that he coined the phrase ‘prime the pump’ a few days ago?” asks Goldberg. Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer: Trump is 70 years old and his cognitive skills are deserting him. The evidence for this is becoming scarily abundant.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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