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


Over at the mothership, Matt Miller reports that the nation’s scientists have some questions for Donald Trump and the rest of the presidential field. They want to know about climate change, biodiversity, science education, nuclear power, vaccines, and so forth, but I think they’re being a little too ambitious. Here is Trump on the Howard Stern show a few years ago:

STERN: What’s 17 times 6?
[Trump kids look like deer in headlights.]
TRUMP: It’s eleven twelve, 112.
STERN: Wrong!
ARTIE LANGE: It’s 102.
TRUMP: 112.
STERN: It is 112?
TRUMP: 112.

Maybe we should ask Trump to tell us what is 17 plus 6. Then we can move on to the harder stuff.

Of course, there’s a real lesson here: Trump knows it’s better to have an answer, any answer, than to be caught out. Besides, he was just being sarcastic. Why do you people take everything he says so seriously, anyway?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

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