Welcome to your now-regular roundup of the Donald Trump campaign, where we filter through all the self-inflicted wounds suffered by the candidate in the last day or so.
The most interesting news of the day is the sort of one-sentence tidbit that you'd hear playing on a small television set in the background of the first scene of a science fiction novel or summer horror movie, a not-too-subtle bit of foreshadowing as to just what is about to hit the fan and in what sort of quantities. Donald Trump is scheduled tomorrow to receive his first classified national security briefing as a potential president of the United States.
Accompanying him will be would-be vice presidential picks Chris Christie and Gen. Flynn, presumably because they are still in the running for cabinet posts. Or, just as likely, they're there to carry Donald Trump's lunch.
Our next task will be to wait and see just how long it takes Trump to (1) brag about getting a national security briefing and (2) nonchalantly leak information from that meeting during a live Fox News interview. I give it six days. While you're placing your own bets, here's the rest of the day's Trump campaign news.
• Campaign chair Paul Manafort is still on the defensive after the New York Times reported a secret Ukranian ledger showed over $12 million in cash earmarked for Manafort for Manafort's work for deposed pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych. Vice presidential pick Mike Pence weighed in on Manafort's behalf today with his trademark opacity, stating that while he accepts Manafort's word that there was nothing untoward going on—aside from working for a pro-Russian strongman who had to flee the country for Russian asylum—Paul Manafort "is involved in our campaign, but he's not running for president." Glad Pence cleared that up. Meanwhile, even conservative columnists are wondering if Trump's "pro-Russian clique" has been duping him.
• Trump-endorsing Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen Muslim-American soldier, "thought he was going to get a free ride" after speaking against Trump at the Democratic convention, and defended Trump's subsequent attacks on the family. “In a campaign, if you are going to go out and think you can take a shot and somebody and not have incoming coming back at you, shame on you.” Let this be your daily reminder that Trump has done nothing to the Republican Party that they hadn't already willingly done to themselves.
• New Hampshire Veterans for Trump co-chair Jerry DeLemus will plead guilty for his role in the 2014 assault of BLM agents in Nevada by armed militants summoned to the task by conspiracy-peddling rancher Cliven Bundy. DeLemus is considered a "midlevel organizer" of the armed assault of BLM agents tasked with impounding stray Bundy Ranch cattle and the subsequent ranch standoff, an assault which turned Cliven Bundy into a momentary Fox News hero and emboldened anti-government militia groups.
• Trump adviser and national veteran's coalition co-chair Al Baldasaro again repeated his belief that Hillary Clinton "should be shot in a firing squad for treason."
• There's evidence Donald Trump's nonstop advocacy for the so-called "border wall" is turning voters against support for that wall. Support for the go-to Republican talking point is down ten points in the last six months.
• Reviews of yesterday's "major foreign policy speech" by Trump are in. They are, for the most part, catastrophic.
• When the hosts of Fox & Friends are comparing your policy ideas to the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts—and they mean that as a compliment—your party may have lost the plot. Let this be your daily reminder that Trump has done nothing to the Republican Party that didn't first appear in a Fox News chyron.
• A letter from 120 prominent Republicans to the RNC urges them to cut Trump loose.
• The Trump campaign will resume sending supporters and reporters "MEDIA BIAS OFFENDER" emails, messages purporting to identify anti-Trump bias in specific media stories about the campaign. While attacks against the media have been a staple of the Trump campaign—resulting in some tense moments for reporters following him on the campaign trail—Trump has significantly ramped up his attacks since this weekend's New York Times report on the internal travails of his campaign.
• The New York Times reports that ex-former Fox News head Roger Ailes, who was fired from the network after an investigation into multiple sexual harassment complaints against him, is now advising Donald J. Trump in preparation for the upcoming presidential debates. The Trump campaign denies it, acknowledging only that Ailes and Trump "have been friends for many years."
• Trump's polling collapse continues, with battleground state polls showing Clinton winning decisively. How bad are things getting? Trump is leading in the Republican stronghold of Texas by a mere six points. When the effects of early voting are factored in, things look even more dismal.
• If Donald Trump's pitch to Utah Republicans doesn't get any better than this phoned-in op-ed effort, he's probably going to keep bleeding support there, too.
• After declaring Trump a "con man", embattled Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will be campaigning in Florida with the con man's running mate. Apparently one degree of separation is all the separation he needed. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, meanwhile, is still trying to toe that thinnest of partisan lines: "While [Trump] has my vote he doesn't have my endorsement." When they write the screenplay for this it's just going to be one profile in courage after another, isn't it?
• The problem Republicans face? Like him or hate him, the Trump candidacy is a desired product of a massive voting bloc within the Republicans base, a base increasingly obsessed with xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and everything else Trump was able to parlay into an easy primary victory. Republican leaders stand against it at their peril.
• From Perry's new attacks on the Khan family to Trump's University woes, the Trump campaign seems to be obsessed with keeping scandalous stories alive. Trump's new Trump University defense, now that he's for the moment pivoted off attacking the ethnicity of the federal judge hearing the case against him, is now that the sitting president is behind the whole thing. Election watchers may need refresh their conspiracy theory bingo cards before too long; there's been a brand new crop of them in that short gap between the national conventions and now.
• Trump once again dismisses talk of "pivoting." "I am who I am. [...] If you start pivoting, you are not being honest with people."