Here’s our list of takeaways for Donald Trump’s July FEC report which came out over the weekend. But there’s one part of the story I wanted to drill a bit deeper on – in part because it shows what a mess Trump’s campaign remains but even more because it illustrates a very basic Trump MO: friendship and loyalty over experience and competence.
The issue is who’s doing Trump’s digital work.
Kellyanne Conway got a shot today on CNBC to answer why her purportedly post-pivot boss is still insulting and issuing threats against TV personalities. It didn’t go well, though in Conway’s defense, I’m not sure what she’s supposed to say.
I wanted to flag this from election law expert Rick Hasen.
Notable that in what appears to be primarily a feud with Scarborough, Trump cannot help focusing almost entirely on cohost Mika Brzezinski, calling her in two short tweets: “off the wall”, “neurotic”, “insecure” and a “not very bright mess.” This latest blow up speaks for itself. But with this guy’s issues with women, think about the internal tension and coming blow up being driven by the fact that he’s currently getting crushed by a woman.
My father died ten years ago today. I was sitting at this desk, albeit in a different TPM office, when I heard. To remember to him, I’m reupping this post I wrote about him and our life together two weeks after he died.
I wanted to return to what is certainly the stupidest and yet also one of the most important debates of the 2016 cycle: Trumpers, angry racists or economically stressed victims of globalization? By calling it the stupidest debate I don’t mean to insult anyone. I’ve participated in it to some degree and I generally place myself on one side of it. But like any debate which seeks to make a fixed ideological orthodoxy over whether the chicken preceded the egg or vice versa, it can’t help but degenerate into something semantic, embattled and ultimately stupid. In any case, it is still a critical question since Trumpism is a hugely significant development in contemporary US politics. So we need to understand what it is, where it comes from and where it’s going.
It’s a small detail. But a telling one, I think. On Friday the Trump campaign put out word that Paul Manafort had been fired. “Asked to resign,” as the euphemism has it. One more gratuitous indignity. It’s part of the man (Trump) and the culture.
Trump on Fox explained the disastrous lives of African-Americans who have no money, education, or really anything, as he tells it. Things are so bad “what do they have to lose” by voting for Trump. Video after the jump.
I want to strongly recommend you watch this video clip from CNN after the jump. It’s a simple package of a segment of a Donald Trump speech followed by a brief interview by CNN’s Brianna Keilar with former Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA), now serving as a Trump surrogate.
Paul Manafort presided over the most calamitous stretch of presidential campaigning in modern political history. Behold the trainwreck.