It's time for the daily roundup of news from the Donald Trump campaign. For those of you waiting for the campaign to have, eventually, a "good day" … prepare to be kept waiting.
The bulk of media attention this weekend was devoted Donald Trump's continued efforts to assure minority Americans he is deserving of their support, despite all that stuff he said, and did, and predicated his entire campaign around, and despite his unwillingness to visit with actual non-white voters in order to plead his case. Fear not, though, his new advisers are truly, truly moved by his inclusiveness. Kellyanne Conway:
I live in a white community. I'm white. I was very moved by his comment.
And if that's not a perfect little capsule of the Donald Trump campaign, I'm not sure one can be found. On to today's events.
• Big trouble: Over the weekend, Trump met with Latino advisers who came away with the impression that Trump was open to some form of legalization of undocumented residents. Today's campaign efforts were devoted to dousing that fire, assuring his merry band of xenophobic supporters that he said nothing of the sort. This is the key problem for Trump as general election candidate; he won the primary with blisteringly far-right rhetoric on the dangers of immigrant "rapists" and "terrorists", a xenophobic and nationalist campaign through-and-through. It's won him the support of a majority of his party, but is toxic to everyone else. After building his entire brand on it, however, pivoting away now may cost him more supporters than it gains.
• More evidence of trouble: In the wake of questions over just what his immigration policy actually is, Trump has cancelled his planned Thursday "immigration speech" because that speech is "still being modified." That's campaign speech for "Even though we planned a key policy speech for later in the week, we just realized we don't know what our policy is yet." There's no word on when or if there will be a second attempt.
• Even more evidence of trouble: Trump has cancelled planned rallies not just in Colorado (the would-be immigration speech), but also in Oregon and Nevada. The charitable interpretation might be that his new handlers are steering his efforts toward true battleground states, as opposed to his current scattershot approach, but Colorado and Nevada aren't places Trump can ignore. Perhaps he's tired? He has seemed rather low-energy of late.
• New campaign CEO Steve Bannon is the force behind turning Breitbart "News" from a mere conspiracy-minded site into, in his own words, "the platform for the alt-right." He remains a defender:
Bannon dismisses the alt-right's appeal to racists as happenstance. "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe," he says. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements."
Mother Jones notes that a Twitter analysis of racist hashtags pegs Breitbart as indeed a hub of racist activity, with 62 percent of retweeters of anti-Muslim tag "#counterjihad" following the site, and that Bannon's promotion of hate group leader Pamela Geller and other extremists, as well as his own statements, place him squarely in the ranks of the "happenstance" racists.
• As for those who once worked with Bannon, chalk up another as now a reluctant Clinton voter. "This is one of those times where the best interests of the whole outweigh any partisan allegiances or any specific issue." Kurt Bardella calls Breitbart under Bannon "toxic and perpetually malcontent", and warns that Bannon "can help amplify" Trump's "hateful rhetoric to an unprecedented degree."
• The extremists are in the building: An AP examination of the social media accounts of "more than 50 current and former campaign employees" who assisted Trump in the primaries found, among other things, declarations that Muslims are unfit to be U.S. citizens and calls for Secretary of State John Kerry to be hanged. Also featured: videos of black men eating fried chicken, jokes about Mexican accents featuring "an overweight man wearing a sombrero," and a proposal that "people should be forced to eat bacon before they can purchase firearms."
• Republican activist Ana Navarro: "I believe Donald Trump is a racist. You don't get to make textbook racist remarks for a year and not be a racist. You don't get to make textbook sexist remarks for a year and not be a misogynist."
• As Trump prepares for the debates, he's not using a lectern. But he is apparently using "briefing binders" and a Roger Ailes.
• Republican House fundraising continues to take a dive in the wake of the party's Trump nomination.
• The fight between former besties Donald Trump and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough is getting nastier by the day. So we can apparently cross off catfights with Morning Joe as something Donald Trump might "regret."
• CNN Trump analyst Corey Lewandowski, meanwhile, continues to be paid by Trump.
• Trump ally Roger Stone gave a speech yesterday in which he once again demonstrated What Kind Of People Donald Trump has surrounded himself with: people who will tell their listening audience that Chelsea Clinton is "actually the daughter of Webb Hubble" who got "four plastic surgeries" to look more like Bill Clinton. Because that's totally a thing that someone who has the ear of a future president devotes his noggin-time—and speeches—to puzzling out. No word on what cabinet position Stone might be in the running for.
• Trump ally Rudy Giuliani descends into the conspiracy ranks as well, making a case for the coordinated Hillary-Clinton-is-sekritly-very-ill conspiracy theory that Sean Hannity, Roger Stone, Trump-supporting Breitbart, and Trump himself have attempted to push in recent days. Giuliani, of course, is seeking to become Trump's appointed Secretary of 9/11.
• Roger Stone, again: Trump should release his past tax returns "immediately." Never let it said that the man knew how to stay on the talking points.
• Donald Trump is not good at business, "Trump Mortgage" edition.
• Sean Hannity's televised devotion to the Trump campaign—not merely content to host town halls for Trump or fly prospective vice presidential candidates to meet with Trump, but also as adviser to Trump, continues to raise eyebrows everywhere but in the offices of Fox News.
• RNC spokesman Sean Spicer, today: Donald Trump can't be racist because when he bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985 he allowed black people to join too.
• Trump spoke to NBCUniversal earlier in the campaign about continuing his reality show, The Apprentice, from the Oval Office.