Campaign Action
Welcome to Immigration Day on the Trump campaign trail, the 35th reset of the Donald Trump presidential campaign and the fifth-ish of those resets since last Friday. Today was the day Donald Trump gave his Big Immigration Speech. But since that evening speech hasn’t happened as of the time this roundup has to be written, scrubbed, polished, unpolished, spindled, mutilated and ready for you, we’ll have to cover it tomorrow.
Trump also jetted down to Mexico City at the invitation of that country's president, resulting in one of the more awkward bits of stagecraft on the campaign trail. The president and the candidate met for about 45 minutes in private, upon which both came out to give brief speeches conspicuously dodging the awkward things Trump has been saying about Mexico for over a year. As for whether or not we will be building a wall that Mexico will be paying for, also known as the entire reason for the Donald Trump campaign, his core promise to a rabidly xenophobic fan base? Donald Trump said it didn't come up.
Curiously, however, a spokesman for Peña Nieto told the press that Peña Nieto specifically told Trump during the meeting that Mexico would not be paying for such a wall, a statement the Mexican president himself later repeated. Who to believe?
The minor question of whether or not Donald Trump flatly lied about his private conversation with a foreign leader aside, the whole event was, naturally, capped off by the only remaining duty of our great national press corps: An afternoon discussion of whether or not Trump "looked presidential" in the venue. The bar on this one continues to drop lower as the campaign goes on; Trump either dodged the core dispute between himself and his host country or lied about the results, but also did not pull his counterpart's hair or insult the Mexican citizenry to their faces, so it was considered afterwards to be a good day.
As I mentioned on Twitter at the time, I don't agree that Donald Trump is being graded by the press as if he were a grade-school child, because even schoolchildren giving oral reports (What I Learned In Mexico, by Donny J Trump) are expected to know things. The measure being forever taken of Trump is specifically whether he "looks" or "sounds" presidential. Can he control his temper? Can he keep from insulting his audience? How is his coat today?
So Donald Trump is not being graded as if he were a child. Donald Trump is being graded as if he is a Golden Retriever in the ring at the Westminster Dog Show. Does he look the part? His stride—is it confident?
Glossy coat, good teeth. Bit handler, but missed artery; overall a good showing.
There was other news today, of course. Here's the rest of it.
• If the presser between Mexican president and American candidate seemed both awkward and conspicuously devoid of substance, there may be a good reason for that: It seems the Mexican government didn't actually expect Trump to accept the invitation. The Mexican public expressed alarm and distain for the invite, with the country's pundits largely of the opinion that it was a foolish move by Peña Nieto, but Peña Nieto may have been calculating that he could send the letter to both candidates, encouraging a Clinton visit while still counting on Trump to do the more expected Trumpian thing of refusing to show up. Oops?
• The Clinton campaign response to Trump's visit with Peña Nieto: "Trump choked."
• Trump ditched his traveling press corps for the Mexico visit. They were not pleased.
• Back in his home country, Trump's much-touted visit to a Detroit African American church, specifically the church of televangelist Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, appears to already have been severely pared back from what was originally envisioned. While Trump will indeed be conducting a televised interview with Jackson, that interview will not be in front of the congregation, and Trump will not be speaking to that congregation or taking questions. Instead, the interview will be filmed privately and televised later; there is still word that Trump may meet with "a small group" of others at the church, but no further details have been given.
• Mike Pence seems to still be struggling with which Trumpian conspiracy theories he is willing to embrace and which are too humiliating. It appears he won't (yet) be supposing ridiculous things about Clinton's health based on the usual conservative tape-fakers, but considers skepticism of the integrity of the upcoming election to be "well-founded."
• Here is a tip for Republicans in general and Trump in specific: If you cannot think of a Republican who has done good things for black Americans since Abraham Lincoln, do not say anything at all. Going back 150 years to find a Republican with a non-horrific stance on black Americans—with even that enlightened stance being little more than the declaration that maybe white people ought not keep them as slaves—is not nearly as convincing as you think it is. Surely, surely it hasn't been one and a half centuries since a Republican piped up with decent, non-embarrassing thoughts on this? Find that person, and start quoting them instead.
• A lover scorned: The once far-too-friendly relationship between MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and candidate Trump has turned positively bitter of late. Today saw Morning Joe promoting a music video expressing his contempt for the, ahem, "flaccid" Trump. That's right, we've reached the Taylor Swift stage of the Trump-Scarborough breakup.
• Very mysterious ways: Former Rep. Michele Bachmann says God "raised up" Donald Trump, allowing him to win the Republican nomination because God figured Trump had the best chance of winning the general election.
• I quit: Fox News resident psychiatric-type-person Keith Ablow says Donald Trump "showed an incredible degree of psychological strength" in talking about the size of his penis during a primary debate.