Nice try, Donald Trump

| 9:09 am EDT April 2, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

In a crisis like this, the last thing that anyone should care about is social media popularity. And the last person on earth who should care about social media popularity right now is the President of the United States. But there was Donald Trump on Wednesday, using his coronavirus crisis press briefing to brag that he had become “number one on Facebook.”

Here’s the thing: it’s not even true. It would have been disgusting, callous, and psychotic for Donald Trump to have bragged about his popularity on Facebook during a deadly crisis like this, even if it were true. But as always ends up being the case with this guy, he’s flat out lying.

It takes all of ten seconds to look up Donald Trump’s official Facebook page and see that he has about 26 million likes. So does this make him number one? No. Barack Obama has about 55 million likes, so Trump isn’t even half as popular on Facebook as Obama is. For reference Justin Bieber has about 76 million likes, so Trump is about one-third as popular on Facebook as Justin Bieber.

None of these numbers matter, of course. But they serve as the latest reminder that not only is Donald Trump the kind of psychopath who brags about his Facebook popularity while he’s supposed to be leading the nation through a deadly crisis, he’s the kind of psychopath who lies about his Facebook popularity. We couldn’t have a more unfit President if we tried.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.