We continue the long, slow slog that is our daily roundup of Donald Trump campaign news. When we began this feature, it was a response to a Republican campaign that was bleeding so much negative news in any given day that no one blog could contain it all. Now? Now it is a death march. A slow, plodding trudge through fields flooded waist-high with bile and tangerine-colored spray tan, as we look up to a darkened sky and long for the sweet release of—
Oh, right, we've got news to cover! Well let's just get to that, then.
• In the wake of a presidential debate performance that was Really Not Good, Trump's inner circle is said to be in a justifiable panic over how their candidate will get through the next two. News reports are ablaze with leaks from Trump staffers as to how they want to better prepare their candidate for the next debates.
• What's absent from those reports is any indication the candidate himself will go along with the plans for more rigorous debate practice next time around. Trump, in fact, specificially denies reports that his staff is alarmed. "Hard to be unhappy when we are doing so well."
• The Trump campaign is emphatically denying suspicions that their candidate has a cold after a debate performance that saw Trump sniffling through many of his answers. This is just bizarre behavior, at this point: You can't admit the man ever gets sick? Is he running for the presidency of North Korea now?
• What is getting a lot of mention from the candidate himself—and, notably, a host of his topmost surrogates—is the notion that Clinton getting under Trump's skin at the first debate has now justified Trump attacking Clinton for her "husband's indiscretions", meaning the Monica Lewinsky affair. How this precisely is intended to help Trump is an open question; not only is Trump a thrice-married admitted adulterer, but he's surrounded himself with advocates that range from recently-fired-for-decades-of-sexual-harassment (Ailes) to the infamous Gingrich and Giuliani.
• Indeed, Republican and Democratic strategists alike are certain the move would be a devastating error on Trump's part: "He's walking right into her trap," Packer said. "She's making the case that he bullies, degrades and humiliated women. And this will be Exhibit A."
• Which may explain the Trump campaign's own ridiculous play to claim credit for Trump having the "courage" to not do it so far ... while still putting it out there repeatedly. Though we can't dismiss the possibility that the Trump family honestly believes it "courageous" when their father refrains from doing the worst possible thing in any given moment. The bar has, throughout this campaign, consistently sunk to exactly one notch below whatever Donald Trump has most recently done. (The bar is currently in danger of melting down due to heat from the Earth's core, upon which we'll have to all chip in and buy a new one made out of more durable materials.)
• There's focus-group evidence Trump's debate performance might have done him serious damage even among his core base of non-college-educated white voters. What's not known is whether that damage will have any long-term impact.
• The next debate between the two presidential candidates will be in the "town hall" format, with questions posed by audience members. This is not, to put it mildly, a format Trump is expected to do well in.
• Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson, who has been such a prodigious liar throughout this election that networks still booking her must do it simply to spite their own viewers, denies that Trump has retreated to a Fox News-and-only-Fox News interview firewall. Despite doing almost no national interviews of late except for those on the Fox network, Pierson claims his rally schedule means "there's really no time to do TV." Except, of course, on Fox.
• America still searches for someone in the nation who can make sense of Donald Trump's debate remarks on nuclear weapons: "I think that once the nuclear alternative happens, it's over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can't take anything off the table."
• After Fox News repeatedly promoted online, vote-many-times polls as evidence Trump "won" the Monday debate, a network executive was forced to send a memo reminding the staff that such polls are unscientific and "do not meet our editorial standards." In related news, someone at Fox News is still insisting the network has "editorial standards."
• The once-refugee photographer who created the "Skittles" picture Donald Trump Jr. used for his controversial tweet bashing refugees has filed a copyright claim over that tweet, prompting its removal.
• The Trump Rule: Forbes editor Randall Lane explains that whatever Trump claims his wealth to be, "we [at Forbes] generally think he's worth about a third of that. That's been true for about 30 years." He dismissed current Trump claims of a $10 billion net worth to be "impossible."
• The Trump campaign's Georgia state director resigned yesterday after the revelation of past criminal acts.
• The Culinary Workers Union is calling for a boycott of all Trump properties and are asking other unions to respect their boycott by not delivering goods to the affected properties. This follows yearlong efforts by the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas to refuse contract negotiations and retaliate against pro-union employees after its workers voted to unionize last December ... and sets the stage for nationwide footage of Trump's workers picketing against him.
• Trump's children are said to be unhappy with the campaign's current leadership, believing the campaign to be hurting the family's business interests.
• We have to consider the strong possibility that Donald Trump doesn't really want to be president.
• Let us take this opportunity to once again be creeped out by just what a creepy, creepy pervert Trump reported himself to be before he decided to run for president. (Shudder.)
• Another day, another tale of Donald Trump stiffing the people he's done business with.
• Another steadfastly Republican paper endorses Trump's opponent, with the Arizona Republic endorsing the Democratic candidate for the first time in its 126-year history.
• "Pepe the Frog", a cartoon frog that was co-opted from prior internet meme status by anti-Semites and white supremacists, gained momentum among the racist "alt-right", and is currently omnipresent among Trump supporters self-identifying as "deplorable", has been added as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.