Vee

Vox, HuffPo, NY Magazine and Politico smell blood.

Lauer is getting trashed on social media - and apparently he and NBC knew it, according to one reporter on the scene tonight. Guy also says the crowd inside the forum was livid that he opened on emails, and shocked by Trump's cluelessness re: military courts.

I think she'll do fine in the debates. I don't think any sane person on Trump's team who saw that tonight wants him to do a live debate, though. Oh, and let's not forget this.

Politico is Politico. What matters is the overall impression, which is that he flamed out.

I don't think so. CNN is savaging him, as are many of the veterans and generals the networks are having on. Josh Marshall's take is pretty correct, IMO.

No, they won't. It was too much of a mess. He was rambling and lost his cool, then began complimenting Putin for "saying nice things about me" and when challenged to defend Putin's record of injustice and human rights abuses, he said "what about Obama?" He said they had to admit Putin was "much of a leader" compared to our president. Then he called all the generals supporting Hillary 'losers'. That [!@#$%^&*] is going to stick to him. They had the knives out for Hillary and she handled it, but Trump's segment was far worse. I don't believe he will do more than one debate, if that.

Trump is losing it.

For anyone who isn't, check out the live Commander-in-Chief forum on MSNBC/NBC. Hillary and Trump are appearing one after another (Hillary is up first, lost the coin toss) and answering questions. ETA: Matt Lauer spent 10+ minutes out of 30 on emails, followed by a guy asking more questions about emails. This is supposed to be a foreign policy discussion. Then Lauer tried to shut her down when she was answering an actual substantive question and she cut him off and kept going. I think she's done well despite what was mostly a hit job setup, but it's not going to move the needle with many not already voting for her. What will is Trump, next - unless Lauer goes easy on him. Even if he does, Trump can't handle being held to questions live. I thought this was an hour each, but it's only 30 minutes and Matt Lauer tries to rush people through questions! It's like Supermarket Sweep, ridiculous. But Twitter is roasting Matt, and Hillary did dominate him.

Robert Knepper talks working on TP and Lynch.

Still behind on Greenleaf but very excited for this.

Hillary's already let the press on the plane, started taking questions and will apparently be giving another interview to ABC this week (I think; she actually gives a fair few interviews). Beyond that I agree with marceline there's nothing else she can do. She's leading in the polls and she's campaigning hard, her campaign is not the problem and her numbers are up. She's talked honestly about what happened more than once in the last month, and to the press. It's now up to the media to stop putting the thumb on the scale as they desperately try to push a horse race narrative which is nastily exacerbated this year by their long-standing enmity towards Hillary Clinton, and to give up on the endless emails/foundation mess - they've gotten what they wanted out of it, which is a slightly closer race. Meanwhile: The backstory on Greta Van Susteren's abrupt exit/firing from Fox News. The whole place is imploding.

CNN is also running a poll claiming Trump is up on Clinton by 2, I believe. The reality is, they oversampled Republicans to get that number. I think there's a big 50-state poll in the WP that is much more in line with Hillary's lead. I do think MSNBC and CNN are running with the Bondi case more these last 24 hours - in part because there was a big backlash over the weekend against both cable and print media for letting Trump slide by puffing up the Hillary 'scandals' from hot air. The Krugman article was a big deal.

I actually think it's good that what Josh Marshall and others have described as the latest spasm from the press in one direction vs. another (Trump or Hillary) is playing out now vs. later. According to conventional media wisdom Trump was supposed to 'pivot' in August and make things a real horse race - he never did, so they've been struggling to even up the tally between the two ever since even though Clinton commands a lead and Trump is a walking disaster. That's why the push went from Trump's ongoing messes throughout July and August to trying to handicap Hillary now. The usual election year narrative spun out of control and they're trying to right it. Come late September they will be eager to prove themselves still impartial, and will be after Trump again. They know no one will respect any of them if the rest of the media watches them get rolled by Trump on live TV. It's about their pride, as well as checking him and restoring 'balance'. It's amoral, but that's much of our media.

More and more credible journalists are getting fed up with the media obsession with the emails and the Clinton Foundation vs. the double standard on Trump's scandals (some are suggesting the media is taking for granted that he's crooked and they've got scandal fatigue), and it's taking off this morning - Paul Krugman shames the NYT in its own pages and it's gone viral. I do think Hillary will win and win big, and I think most of the media knows that. But they also deeply dislike and resent her, and they need ratings. I think right now the shift by a lot of the media is a desperate press to push the false equivalence as much as possible between the two to even the odds and lean on her hard in order to try to save their precious horse race until the end. But it is still vapid, amoral and contemptible. Further, what concerns me about the debates (should they occur!) is that we've now had Martha Raddatz (hawkish moderator of debate #2) haranguing Tim Kaine about "The Emails" on Sunday morning, and Chris Wallace, known FOX News shill and moderator of debate #3, blithely saying he will not be fact-checking Trump during the debate. Granted, I have my doubts three debates will take place let alone one.

Gretchen Carlson got Ailes on tape.

Chris Wallace is a right-wing shill, but like marceline I'm not convinced Trump will last to the third debate. Or the first, frankly. Someone in House Trump has got to be questioning the wisdom of putting their racist, incoherent candidate in a debate at all, let alone the first, which will be moderated by a black man. Raddatz is a bit of a hawk but was unable to damage Obama a few rounds ago and I suspect Hillary may be more her speed.

Leaked script for Trump's appeal to black churches.

Rasmussen is always skewed.

Trump and the president of Mexico are now feuding on Twitter:

Trump's Hispanic surrogates feel shocked and betrayed! NYT examines the hasty planning behind the Mexico trip - panic.

They cover him because he's a freakshow and gooses their numbers, not because they worship him. The problem is that they are also removed from the dangers and thus detached that they also continue to play the 'both sides' game in the hopes of maintaining a horse race at the same time, and that is a treacherous mix with a racist egomaniac like Trump. As for campaign money and ground game, he needs them because he's still way behind and will continue to be. We saw the limits of his 'free media' strategy at the end of the primaries, and that's why he's in the basement now and will stay there. We can be annoyed at the media all we like, but nothing they do is changing that. Are they complicit? Of course, as usual. They want to be appalled by Trump but also keep covering him while negging on Clinton. But despite their irresponsible double-standard, he is still losing. Badly.

I think most of the media desperately wants him to lose and considers him a dangerous buffoon. But they also desperately want a horse race and numbers, and many of them have despised Hillary for decades. So it's a mix.

Most of the press called it what it was - fearmongering and bile. In fact, they got the NYT to change their milquetoast coverage of it.

Trump had immigrant models working illegally. Treated like slaves. Oh, and he's considering going to Mexico tomorrow before his 'big' immigration speech.

Karen Gillan is doing the new Jumanji film with the Rock and Kevin Hart.