The New York Times Alan Rappeport:
In his interview with The Post, Mr. Trump made it clear that his campaign staff does not always speak for him. He was asked specifically about comments by his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who has acknowledged that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii and has said that Mr. Trump privately agrees.
“It’s O.K.,” he said of Ms. Conway on Thursday. “She’s allowed to speak what she thinks. I want to focus on jobs. I want to focus on other things.” [...]
For Mr. Trump, clinging to “birtherism” appeared to be another sign that he does not intend to make a drastic pivot to attract a broader swath of voters, including members of minority groups who have been deeply skeptical of his campaign.
Philip Bump at The Washington Post calls out the statement released by the Trump campaign as filled with lies:
On Thursday night, Donald Trump finally acknowledged an obvious, proven fact: President Obama was born in the United States. Or, rather, Trump's campaign said that he acknowledged it, in a statement that was itself riddled with falsehoods.
What's more, a critical part of the Trump campaign's statement is the signature it bears: "Jason Miller, Senior Communications Advisor." Clearly we can take Mr. Miller's word as the word of the candidate, right?
Perhaps not.
Margaret Hartmann’s piece has all the links and videos you need to know that the Trump hasn’t renounced his birtherism at all::
Everyone knows that two wrongs don’t make a right, but maybe that equation changes when you tack on multiple statements that are completely wrong? That’s the strategy the Trump team tested on Thursday night after the candidate refused to say whether President Obama was born in the United States, even after several top surrogates reported that he’s rejected birtherism. [...]
To make matters worse, the campaign told BusinessWeek’s Joshua Green that Trump has shifted his stance on birtherism (which he has yet to do publicly) because he suddenly realized how offensive it is to black voters...
Olivia Nuzzi at The Daily Beast:
And although the professional aides and strategists who now surround him would prefer that the media and the public—except for the other birthers—forget this fact, it is still very much a fact. No statement from an aide or strategist can change that.
Only Donald Trump can.
And—make no mistake—he hasn’t even tried.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Traister analyzes Ivanka Trump’s lies about Trump and Clinton’s child care plans:
The widely held belief that entrepreneur Ivanka Trump is her father’s best public spokesperson was tested this week during her tour in support of his new child-care and maternity-leave proposals. In a series of interviews, Ivanka, who’s regularly been praised as the smart, poised, appealing Trump, and who certainly gave the glossiest speech of the Republican convention (in which she argued for policy reform supported by Democrats), had trouble under even mild scrutiny of her dad’s proposals, and instead revealed herself as just as defensive and dishonest as her father.
Betsy Woodruff explains how Donald Trump Jr. is Clinton’s best surrogate:
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. has distinguished himself with his rare gift for consistently embarrassing the campaign. [...] He’s made a habit of retweeting and associating with members of the racist alt- right, an internet movement that is fond of using Nazi imagery and making Holocaust jokes.
Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post tells Democrats to stop freaking out:
if you want to stop Trump, focus on the fundamentals — and get busy...
the Democratic Party has structural advantages in a presidential year, as Barack Obama so vividly demonstrated. The party’s coalition of women, young people, African Americans, Asian Americans and Hispanics has growing weight in the electorate. Trump’s base — older, whiter, more male — is a shrinking portion of the overall vote.
And the electoral map favors Democrats, giving Clinton more paths to victory than Trump. If she wins Florida, it’s over. Same if she wins Ohio. And she could even lose both and still get to 270.
Finally, at POLITICO, Eli Stokols and Hadas Gold write about Trump’s lack of transparency (where’s the rest of the media outrage?)
Donald Trump on Thursday mocked his traveling press corps for being late to his rally, even though his campaign is responsible for arranging the pool's travel.
"I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get here. I love it. So they're trying to get here now. They're going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let's get going, New Hampshire."[...]
"This is completely ridiculous and unacceptable. This has gone on for way to long and it's time we take a stand," said one member of the traveling press.
"There's the want to do something among traveling press of course - being constantly mocked and demonized is awful - but there's the competing feeling that news organizations have almost let too much slide to have any bargaining power at this point," said a third member of Trump's traveling press corps.
”News organizations have almost let too much slide”? That’s an understatement...