Welcome back to our daily roundup of news from the bleak hellscape that is now the Donald Trump campaign. Be wary, travelers; the critters out here don't take kindly to human-folk.
That established, let's poke a few of those creatures with a stick and see what happens. (Hint: In at least four cases, the response will be rabid racism.) On to the day's strange mix of news.
• Today could almost have passed for a quiet day in Trumpland, which can only mean that either the day was taken up primarily with showing the new hires where the gold-plated coffee machine was or the now-demoted Paul Manafort had once again hidden the candidate's phone. Possibly both. Trump appeared for an almost-but-not-quite subdued speech in Charlotte this evening; somewhat curiously, the campaign earlier today announced a new rally next week in Jackson, Mississippi.
The big news from this evening’s event? A brief few sentences in which Trump, reading from pre-written text, expressed “regret” for some of his campaign rhetoric. Which rhetoric? He pointedly didn’t say, only professing “sometimes I can be too honest. Hillary Clinton is the exact opposite, she never tells the truth.” (Also, that the media has been taking “words of mine out of context.”)
• Vice presidential pick Mike Pence campaigned in New Hampshire today, invoking Trump's Tuesday speech themes about restoring "law and order" and dismissing "the narrative" of police acting "as a force for racism and racial division." Good vice presidential candidate—you get a biscuit. Now wait in the crate until the evening show.
• Another day has passed, which means there's new revelations in the links between Donald Trump's campaign team and Russian figures. This time it's not Paul Manafort, or Carter Page, or Gen. Flynn, but Mike McSherry. Or, as some wag quipped: "raise your hand if you're a Trump aide and you DON'T have ties to Russia."
• New campaign manager Kellyanne Conway promises you'll be seeing more of the unfiltered, "spontaneous" Trump. "That's how he got here." She also insists that "it helps us to be a little bit behind." Paul Manafort hasn't resigned yet, by the way. I give it four days, tops.
• Panic is setting in for Senate Republicans, who are increasingly concerned the cratering Trump campaign will doom their own races as well.
• Fresh off claims that Obama invaded Afghanistan, Obama instituted "rules of engagement" that killed the Khan family's son years before his presidency, and that media reporters "literally beat Trump supporters" on the campaign trail, Trump spokesman Katrina Pierson appeared on television again to claim this time that Hillary Clinton's "mannerisms" show she has a serious neurological impairment. There seems no far-right theory passed around the dark corners of the internet that doesn't end up bubbling from her mouth on national television a few days later, leading again to the question: Just why are networks still booking her? Is this an inside joke we're not privy to?
• As Trump himself begins to tout those conspiracy theory-laced assessments of Clinton's health, the Washington Post's fact checker weighs in to debunk the various claims—while noting in passing that Trump's own doctor's letter was rather peculiar itself. The Clinton campaign itself calls the new, conspicuous push by Trump supporters (including Fox News, of course) "deranged conspiracy theories" and "a desperate attempt to change the subject."
• Trump's proposal for "extreme vetting" of immigrants was borrowed from far-right anti-immigrant figures. This will be your now-daily reminder that the vast majority of Trump’s extremist positions come from nativist and white nationalist roots.
• Far-right radio host Michael Savage interviewed Donald Trump yesterday. Afterwards, the host went on an extended rant about how the "white family is being targeted" in America, how Tim Kaine "wants to enslave" his "own race", and how "there's a war coming in this country." Donald Trump, Savage argued, “represents the last great savior of western civilization. Let me be very clear, there’s a battle for western civilization going on now. You’ve got world civilization, you’ve got Islamic supremacy and you’ve got those attacking white people around the globe.” This will be your daily reminder that Trump does next to nothing to distance himself from white nationalist rhetoric or enablers, even when it is quite clear that those enablers are using Trump’s stature to legitimize and propagate that nationalist, nativist ideology.
• Donald Trump foreign policy adviser Joseph Schmitz is denying claims that he worked to remove Jewish employees in the Defense Department during his tenure and dismissed the extent of the Holocaust because "the ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews." This will be your now-daily reminder that—you know what, I think this one speaks for itself.
• A recording of the CB chatter between Trump supporters who staged a confederate-flag-waving pro-Trump "Make America Great Again" convoy in Massachusetts has appeared. It features explicit talk of lynching "n----rs" and other calls for violence. (Warning: Very explicit language.)
• Conservative radio host Dana Loesch calls new Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon "One of the worst people on God's green earth." Other ex-employees have similar harsh words for the man who turned Brietbart into the "alt-right go-to website" and site for "white ethno-nationalism."
• Breitbart Washington Political Editor Matt Boyle, rumored to be one of those potentially leaving the site to join the Trump campaign, was caught authoring a letter in which he pretended to be "from the progressive community" and demanded the Huffington Post remove newly hired reporter Michelle Fields, who had recently resigned from Breitbart (along with several other Breitbart staffers) after she accused then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of assault—an accusation her Breitbart co-workers sought to downplay. Boyle’s letter lambasted Trump and challenged the Fields hire on the grounds that she could not handle the "serious investigative reporting" needed for Donald Trump. Whether the letter was intended to remove Fields from the Trump campaign trail or merely sabotage her post-Breitbart career for the sake of sabotage is unclear, but should serve as another reminder of how the Breitbart team operates.
• The Breitbartification of the Trump campaign has been met with alarm from the punditry and much of the Republican Party. "It's like funding CDC run by a Witch Doctor." "The Trump campaign has gone full Monty." "Another proof point that Trump is not trying to run the kind of serious campaign that can actually win the presidency."
• Another Republican bows out: "I have always voted for Republicans for president," writes former General Motors chairman Daniel Aversion. "Not this year."
• “If you set out to design a strategy to produce the lowest popular vote possible in the new American electorate of 2016, you would be hard-pressed to do a better job than Donald Trump has.”
• Sen. Jeff Sessions praised Trump for Trump's 1989 full-page ad in the New York Daily News demanding the return of the death penalty over the rape of a jogger in Central Park. Four black and one Hispanic teenager were convicted in the case; their innocence was proved in 2001 by DNA evidence. Trump is unremorseful, saying that the wrongly convicted did not "have the pasts of angels."
• The time New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie saved Donald Trump $25 million. And still no vice presidential slot.
• Michael Cohan, he of the now-viral "Says who?" clip, is pleased with his performance, saying he “controlled the interview. I think I unraveled her.”