Welcome back to the daily roundup of Donald J. Trump campaign news. Today was a big day in the Trump campaign, by which we mean Donald J. Trump put his campaign on momentary hold today in order to attend the grand opening of his newest hotel.
There is no polling information to hint whether the Trump International Hotel will swing for or against Trump, come election day, but the Trump campaign scheduling an appearance only 13 days away from that election seems to indicate they don't think they have it in the bag yet. Total electoral votes at stake: zero. Number of rooms available: Inquire within. Protesters out front? Count on it.
Elsewhere in the Barrel O' Trump:
• Trump is losing patience with military experts who aren't supporting his own interpretation of the battle to retake Mosul, telling George Stephanopoulos in a weekend interview “You can tell your military expert that I'll sit down and I'll teach him a couple of things.” He was referring to former dean of the Army War College Jeff McCausland.
• In his standard stump speeches, Trump has routinely blasted Obama—and Clinton—for moving troops out of Iraq too quickly. So you know what's coming, right? 2011 footage of Trump calling Obama "incompetent" because he should "have gotten out a long time ago."
• Swap "Iraq" for "Obamacare" and repeat that last story: No, it turns out Donald Trump did not proclaim Obamacare "a disaster" "before they even voted for it."
• He's just a big ol' lying liar and doesn't care who knows it: Trump may have inflated his net worth bigly in his federal election filings, but when it comes time to file his taxes Trump claims he isn't very bigly at all. "He talked the tax board in Las Vegas into knocking the appraisal of his Trump Hotel down to $25 million, then the very next week, listed its value at $50 million in his financial statements." And that isn't even close to the most egregious case.
• Win or lose, it looks like Donald Trump will be making House Speaker Paul Ryan's life a living hell after the election. He's been speaking out against Ryan for not sufficiently supporting him, and now the party's far-right House fringe is threatening to revolt against his speakership. Because if you're not for the racist misogynist no-nothing buffoon at the top of the ticket, it's you who's out of step with Republicanism.
• Profiles in courage, yet again: Count Nevada's Joe Heck among the Republican officeholders now refusing to say whether he'll be voting for Trump or not.
• Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who spoke at the Republican National Convention earlier this year, has now been formally charged with criminal contempt of court.
• Add Sen. Rand Paul to Trump's ranks of conspiracy peddlers. Today Paul told an interviewer that the polls are being manipulated to show Trump farther behind than he is in order to "suppress turnout."
• Surrogate Newt Gingrich, in the meantime, continues the campaign's valiant fight against Fox News host Megyn Kelly.
• Sen. Ted Cruz hinted that were Trump to lose the election, as he most certainly will, Republicans may simply block a President Clinton from appointing any justices to the Supreme Court throughout her term. "There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices."
• Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh took to twitter today to declare that if Trump loses the election, he'll be "grabbing my musket." I feel now would be a good time to remind readers that the Republican Party was like this before Donald Trump came to pass, and will continue to be like this even after he loses. Though we are looking forward to the party "postmortem" report this time around.
• Donald Trump has somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million invested in the company behind the bitterly controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. In turn, he's received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from the company's executives.
• WWE head Vince McMahon has put word out that "no one working for the company is to talk to any media outlet about Trump."
• Just how bad is Donald Trump doing? Bad enough that losing Texas is a possibility.
• There's building evidence Trump's repeated declarations that the election will be "rigged" against him may be discouraging his supporters from voting at all. That could spell bad news for downballot Republicans trying to survive his dismal campaign.