Quote of the Day: “You’re a Piece of Trash”

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From EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox, asked for comment about the resignation of two aides to Scott Pruitt:

You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.

So professional. The backstory here is that a few weeks ago an Atlantic reporter revealed that Pruitt had asked for permission to raise the salaries of two of his favorite staffers, both of whom had followed him to DC from Oklahoma. Even though he was turned down, Pruitt gave them raises anyway. Millan Hupp, a 26-year-old scheduler, ended up making $114,590 until the Atlantic story came out and Pruitt was forced to rescind the raises.

Obviously Wilcox takes this personally, which is why he told Elaina Plott she was a piece of trash when she called for comment today about Hupp’s resignation. But he must have missed this part:

According to one top EPA official, the 26-year-old was “tired of being thrown under the bus by Pruitt,” and weary of seeing her name constantly appear in headlines about the agency. Officials began drafting her resignation paperwork on Monday morning, just after portions of her congressional testimony were made public.

Pruitt must be a real shitbag. Hupp has worked for Pruitt for several years, and even without the raise she was making $86,460 at age 26. That’s not bad for a 2014 graduate of Oklahoma State University majoring in Hotel and Restaurant Administration. Pruitt must have treated her pretty badly to finally get her to quit what’s really a pretty plum job.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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