The Trail 2016: Crisis mode

by Ben Kamisar, Lisa Hagen and Jonathan Easley - 08/03/16 6:30 PM ET

Welcome to THE TRAIL 2016, your daily rundown from The Hill on all the latest news in the White House, Senate and House races.

Donald Trump’s campaign spent Wednesday navigating through another crisis as tensions boiled over between the GOP nominee and his establishment backers.

The nominee’s decision to refuse to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan angered Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, who had already been fuming over Trump’s criticism of the family of a fallen Muslim-American soldier.

There have been reports that top allies, including Priebus, are looking to host an informal intervention to put the campaign back on track. And CNBC reported that a key ally to Trump’s top aide, Paul Manafort, described the campaign chairman as “mailing it in” with a staff that is “suicidal.”

Newt Gingrich, typically a Trump defender, lamented the nominee’s “self-destructive” actions, while surrogate Ben Carson attempted to paper over the controversy by calling Trump “pro-unity within the party.” Trump and his aides also attempted to tamp down concerns Wednesday, with Trump opening his campaign rally in Florida by declaring that the campaign has never been so united.

There are still three months until the election, so Republicans will be waiting with bated breath to see whether their candidate is able to move past the internal and public squabbles to focus all of his firepower on Hillary Clinton.

Stick with The Hill as we cover the ebbs and flows of this controversy as well as the latest political news.

RACE TO 1600 PENN

NUKES OR NO NUKES: The Hill’s Julian Hattem reports: Donald Trump’s campaign denied a claim from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that the nominee questioned a foreign policy adviser why America couldn’t use its nuclear weapons.

MEASURING THE DRAPES: The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann reports: The Hillary Clinton campaign has officially begun organizing its transition team, The Associated Press reports. The Democratic presidential nominee tapped campaign chairman John Podesta as president of the effort and long-time aide Minyon Moore as secretary, according to the AP.

AMERICAN APPAREL: The Hill’s Nikita Vladimirov reports: Hillary Clinton hit Donald Trump for producing his products overseas, listing 100 domestic companies that could manufacture Trump-brand items.

UNFRIENDLY NEIGHBOR: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Outgoing New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said he didn’t buy Donald Trump’s claim to be the “law and order candidate.”

PRESIDENTIAL PUSHBACK: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Former President George W. Bush critiqued Donald Trump’s views on “isolationism, nativism and protectionism” at a fundraiser Tuesday, according to a new report, without naming the GOP nominee.

DRAWING CONTRASTS: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Hillary Clinton’s campaign launched two new TV ads in battleground states that take aim at Donald Trump for outsourcing jobs, while touting the Democratic nominee’s job-creation plan.

WARNING: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Former CIA Director Michael Hayden argued that Donald Trump may strain the “fabric of our civilian military control.”

ODDS AND ENDS

EXCHANGE APOLOGIES: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Ben Carson said that the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq should exchange apologies with Donald Trump. “I don’t think it would be harmful if they apologized to him and he apologized to them, but I don’t see that happening,” Carson said.

NO CHANGE: The Hill’s Timothy Cama reports: Hillary Clinton’s campaign is pushing back on a report that she’s considering changing the federal ethanol mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard.

A NEW VOTER BASE: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine praised a court ruling that struck down parts of North Carolina’s voter identification law, saying it will likely bring an additional 100,000 people to the polls in the battleground state.

NO MORE INTERVIEWS: The Hill’s Harper Neidig reports: Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim U.S. soldier who was killed in the Iraq War, said he is done giving interviews after a week in the national spotlight blasting Donald Trump.

DOES NOT COMPUTE: The Hill’s Jesse Byrnes reports: Katrina Pierson, a Donald Trump aide, walked back her assertion that Barack Obama had been responsible for a policy change that led to the death of Capt. Humayun Khan, whose family has been critical of Trump. Obama had been serving as an Illinois state senator in 2004, when Khan died.

POLL POSITION

CLOSE IN ARIZONA: The Hill’s Lisa Hagen reports: Hillary Clinton holds a narrow lead over Donald Trump in Arizona, a state where a Democratic presidential nominee has only won once in the last 64 years.

THE DAILY TRUMP

MS. PAC MAN: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransy reports: Donald Trump’s campaign came out with a new short video chiding Hillary Clinton over her decision to delete emails from her private server by depicting her as Ms. Pac Man.

CLOSING TIME: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: The Trump Taj Mahal, the Atlantic City casino to which Donald Trump licensed his name, will shut down after a strike that included more than 1,000 employees.

HINDSIGHT: The Hill’s Ben Kamisar reports:Donald Trump claimed that his call to ban immigration from certain countries with a history of terrorism could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“That’s classic Donald Trump.”

— Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, on Trump’s statement that he wasn’t ready to endorse Speaker Paul Ryan’s reelection bid.

CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS

CAUCUS CHAOS: The Hill’s Scott Wong reports: Allies of the conservative Freedom Caucus rebel defeated in a Tuesday primary are seeking revenge against Speaker Paul Ryan.

MARCHING TO HIS OWN BEAT: The Hill’s Rebecca Savransky reports: Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence “strongly” supports Paul Ryan, even if the presidential candidate won’t do the same.

RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK: The Hill’s Jessie Hellmann reports: Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) won’t debate fellow House member Alan Grayson in their Senate match-up, citing allegations of domestic abuse against Grayson.

OWING AN APOLOGY: The Hill’s Nikita Vladimirov reports: Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), who faces a tough reelection race in November, joined the Republicans calling on Donald Trump to apologize for his comments to the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004.

MONEY WATCH

PLAYING CATCH-UP: The HIll’s Ben Kamisar reports: Donald Trump’s campaign raised $80 million in July, a major uptick in fundraising that still leaves him trailing Hillary Clinton badly.

WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

(All times Eastern)

Donald Trump holds a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., tonight at 7, while running mate Mike Pence holds a rally in Colorado Springs at 8. Trump holds a town hall in Portland, Maine., at 2 p.m. Thursday. Meanwhile, Pence has three campaign events on Thursday, in Raleigh, N.C., at 10 a.m., in Virginia Beach at 3 p.m. and in Norfolk at 7 p.m.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper will host a Libertarian presidential town hall with Gary Johnson and Bill Weld at 9 p.m. today.

Hillary Clinton tours Las Vegas’s Mojave Electric Co LLC at 2:30 p.m. Thursday and follows with a rally in Las Vegas at 3:45 p.m. Running mate Tim Kaine addresses the National Urban League Conference in Baltimore Thursday morning. Nora O’Donnell sits down with Kaine, a preview of which will be aired during Thursday’s “CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley” (6:30-7 p.m.). The extended version will be aired on Friday’s “CBS This Morning,” which airs from 7-9 a.m.

TWEET OF THE DAY

Idea for Trump post-election: Sign contract to appear in Venetian showroom 5 nights/wk doing act he is doing right now. Sellout guaranteed.

— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) August 3, 2016