May 15, 2018

President Trump Would Like You to Know That He Is Modestly Less Unpopular Than Before

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Donald Trump’s approval rating has gone up a little bit recently, probably because the economy is doing well and we’re no longer hearing about impending nuclear war (which would be bad!). So while strolling among his people (Twitter) President Deals used his new, more modest unpopularity to take shots at his main enemy in life, Robert Mueller, and his main frenemy in life, the media.

“Can you believe that with all of the made up, unsourced stories I get from the Fake News Media, together with the $10,000,000 Russian Witch Hunt (there is no Collusion), I now have my best Poll Numbers in a year” the president tweeted. 

Yesterday, Trump said all the leaks appearing in these “unsourced stories” are false, but that the people who leaked the information are traitors.

A few days ago, Axios‘ Jonathon Swan spoke to some White House leakers about why they leak, and the answer was basically because they all hate each other. Which, I mean, fair.

“Much of the Media may be corrupt, but the People truly get it,” Trump went on.

It’s true that Trump’s approval rating has rebounded a bit in recent months, but it’s not like he’s popular in any meaningful sense of the word. Just last week, CNN had a poll that must have really annoyed Trump: 

“In a head-to-head comparison with his immediate predecessor, Trump does not fare very well. Most, 56%, say Barack Obama was a better president than Trump has been, and 37% say Trump is doing a better job than Obama did.”

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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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