• Even more evidence of trouble: Trump has cancelled planned rallies not just in Colorado (the would-be immigration speech), but also in Oregon and Nevada. The charitable interpretation might be that his new handlers are steering his efforts toward true battleground states, as opposed to his current scattershot approach, but Colorado and Nevada aren't places Trump can ignore. Perhaps he's tired? He has seemed rather low-energy of late.
• New campaign CEO Steve Bannon is the force behind turning Breitbart "News" from a mere conspiracy-minded site into, in his own words, "the platform for the alt-right." He remains a defender:
Bannon dismisses the alt-right's appeal to racists as happenstance. "Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe," he says. "Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that's just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements."
Mother Jones notes that a Twitter analysis of racist hashtags pegs Breitbart as indeed a hub of racist activity, with 62 percent of retweeters of anti-Muslim tag "#counterjihad" following the site, and that Bannon's promotion of hate group leader Pamela Geller and other extremists, as well as his own statements, place him squarely in the ranks of the "happenstance" racists.
• As for those who once worked with Bannon, chalk up another as now a reluctant Clinton voter. "This is one of those times where the best interests of the whole outweigh any partisan allegiances or any specific issue." Kurt Bardella calls Breitbart under Bannon "toxic and perpetually malcontent", and warns that Bannon "can help amplify" Trump's "hateful rhetoric to an unprecedented degree."
• The extremists are in the building: An AP examination of the social media accounts of "more than 50 current and former campaign employees" who assisted Trump in the primaries found, among other things, declarations that Muslims are unfit to be U.S. citizens and calls for Secretary of State John Kerry to be hanged. Also featured: videos of black men eating fried chicken, jokes about Mexican accents featuring "an overweight man wearing a sombrero," and a proposal that "people should be forced to eat bacon before they can purchase firearms."
• Republican activist Ana Navarro: "I believe Donald Trump is a racist. You don't get to make textbook racist remarks for a year and not be a racist. You don't get to make textbook sexist remarks for a year and not be a misogynist."
• As Trump prepares for the debates, he's not using a lectern. But he is apparently using "briefing binders" and a Roger Ailes.
• Republican House fundraising continues to take a dive in the wake of the party's Trump nomination.
• The fight between former besties Donald Trump and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough is getting nastier by the day. So we can apparently cross off catfights with Morning Joe as something Donald Trump might "regret."
• CNN Trump analyst Corey Lewandowski, meanwhile, continues to be paid by Trump.
• Trump ally Roger Stone gave a speech yesterday in which he once again demonstrated What Kind Of People Donald Trump has surrounded himself with: people who will tell their listening audience that Chelsea Clinton is "actually the daughter of Webb Hubble" who got "four plastic surgeries" to look more like Bill Clinton. Because that's totally a thing that someone who has the ear of a future president devotes his noggin-time—and speeches—to puzzling out. No word on what cabinet position Stone might be in the running for.
• Trump ally Rudy Giuliani descends into the conspiracy ranks as well, making a case for the coordinated Hillary-Clinton-is-sekritly-very-ill conspiracy theory that Sean Hannity, Roger Stone, Trump-supporting Breitbart, and Trump himself have attempted to push in recent days. Giuliani, of course, is seeking to become Trump's appointed Secretary of 9/11.
• Roger Stone, again: Trump should release his past tax returns "immediately." Never let it said that the man knew how to stay on the talking points.
• Donald Trump is not good at business, "Trump Mortgage" edition.
• Sean Hannity's televised devotion to the Trump campaign—not merely content to host town halls for Trump or fly prospective vice presidential candidates to meet with Trump, but also as adviser to Trump, continues to raise eyebrows everywhere but in the offices of Fox News.
• RNC spokesman Sean Spicer, today: Donald Trump can't be racist because when he bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985 he allowed black people to join too.
• Trump spoke to NBCUniversal earlier in the campaign about continuing his reality show, The Apprentice, from the Oval Office.
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