June 15, 2019

The White House Sent the Weirdest Flag Day Tweet—and the Internet Can’t Stop Laughing

“Michael Cohen just wrote that flag a check for $130k.”

Chris O'Meara/AP

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June 14 was Flag Day, a minor holiday that was established by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to celebrate the day in 1777 that the Continental Congress made the stars and stripes the official American flag. In honor of the event, the White House Twitter account posted this celebratory tweet:

The photo, highlighting the moment President Donald Trump hugged the American flag at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, triggered a cascade of outrage and hilarity from politicians, commentators, and professional comedians on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and TBS’ Full Frontal, some describing the tweet as “weird” and “not what Betsy Ross intended.” 

The almost universally critical responses apparently didn’t deter the president from invoking Flag Day again on Saturday, when he tweeted support for a proposed bill from Sen. Steve Daines’ (R-Mont.)—who introduced similar legislation in in 2017 and 2018—  that would prevent the “physical desecration” of the American flag. This is a cherished issue for Trump, who has called for punishment for burning the American symbol. Shortly after the 2016 election, he tweeted, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” 

 

Trump didn’t respond, much less acknowledge, to the avalanche of criticism for having his aggressive embrace of the flag as the official White House acknowledgment of the holiday. But the criticism just kept coming:

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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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