Trump Ushers in NAFTA 2.0 the Old-Fashioned Way: Surrounded by Lies

Having finished up with everything he knows about the new trade agreement, Donald Trump opens up the floor and begins talking nonstop about Brett Kavanaugh and the perfidy of Democrats, including but not limited to Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, and Dianne Feinstein. Also, he's totally OK with the FBI doing any kind of investigation wants, as long as Senate Republicans approve of it.CNN

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

The indefatigable Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, has provided us with a detailed Twitter summary of Donald Trump’s Rose Garden speech about NAFTA 2.0, otherwise known as USMCA. This acronym, by the way, is going to be confusing for people who think Trump has concluded an agreement with the United States Marine Corps, but it turns out that USMC also stands for United States, Mexico, and Canada. Perhaps it should have been USCMA instead, which would have been easier to pronounce (oo-skee-ma) and less confusing.

Anyway, back to Daniel Dale. It would be copyright infringement for me to simply reproduce his entire tweetstorm, so instead I’m going to reproduce only the tweets about Trump’s lies. I think this will get me in just under the wire of fair use, but it’s a close call:

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.

payment methods

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.

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