CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Mathematicians, statisticians and university departments around the United States received a cease-and-desist letter from Donald Trump's presidential campaign Wednesday, demanding that they "put a stop to all numbers until further notice."
Pointing to President Trump's sinking poll numbers, the continually growing death toll of COVID-19, the contraction of the GDP, and other numerical representations of current events, the letter noted that "these latest figures have definitively proven what we have long suspected: that the entire discipline of mathematics is and always has been fake news, designed to mislead American voters for the benefit of the Democratic Party."
At a press conference Wednesday morning, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany referred reporters’ requests for comment to the Trump campaign, then left the room briefly before returning wearing a MAGA hat and proceeding to answer questions about the legality of such a move.
“The president has always been treated unfairly by numbers," McEnany told the assembled reporters, "so I think he’s just using the legal system in the rich tradition of this nation — to harass and intimidate anyone who gets in his way, even if it's an entire field of study."
Asked whether it was fair or honest for the letter to claim that the discipline of mathematics, which has been around for thousands of years, was a tool of the Democratic Party, McEnany remained steadfast.
“We all know that President Trump has been the greatest president, the most successful president, the most accomplished president, and above all, the most beloved president in the history of the world,” McEnany said. ”Yet we have all these so-called ‘numbers’ coming from the academic elite that contradict these indisputable truths. Who are you going to believe?”
[Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash]
