Today's newsletter is, once again, all about Donald Trump, because once again, Trump is saying/doing/tweeting things that draw our attention to him, and, once again, this is all playing out in a way that makes Hillary Clinton very happy. Before most of us woke up Friday (okay, waaaay before I woke up), Trump blasted three tweets …
 
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Today's newsletter is, once again, all about Donald Trump, because once again, Trump is saying/doing/tweeting things that draw our attention to him, and, once again, this is all playing out in a way that makes Hillary Clinton very happy.

Before most of us woke up Friday (okay, waaaay before I woke up), Trump blasted three tweets that drove the news cycle for the rest of the day and reinforced questions about that all-important word in this presidential race: temperament; specifically how it applies to him.

Here are the tweets:

tweet1

tweet2

tweet3

That's right. Exactly 40 days before the election, the Republican presidential nominee is tweeting about an alleged sex tape from a beauty queen in the '90s.

How Trump treated former Miss Universe Alicia Machado has dominated headlines for a week, since Clinton brought it up in the debate Monday night. (Doesn't that feel sooooo long ago?)

But lately it's Trump who's keeping this decades-old drama in the news, and he's doing it by launching more and more aggressive attacks against a woman who is decidedly not his opponent for the White House.

As The Fix's Aaron Blake explains so well, Trump's accusations in those tweets don't really hold up. All they do is reinforce questions a recent New York Times/CBS poll shows nearly ⅔ of voters have about his temperament.

Clinton probably couldn't have scripted this better herself.

shimmy 2

An investigation: Why Trump tweets late at night and early in the morning

(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)

(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)

There's another thing that confounds us about this episode: Why is Trump tweeting so dang early? The Fix's Philip Bump found that throughout the campaign, Trump tweets at almost all hours of the day, with only a break from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

(One of those tweets, I found in an analysis last year, was to share an article about why successful people don't sleep much.)

For the most part, Bump found that Trump's tweets are, as one might expect, heaviest just before and after major news events. Early on in his campaign, his feud with Macy's produced a series of early-morning tweets. Last fall, Trump was up late tweeting after his appearance on "Saturday Night Live."

Trump is breaking endorsement records — and not in a good way

(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)

A cool visualization you can click the graph to read more about. (Philip Bump / The Washington Post)

Editorial record No. 1: In its 34 years, USA Today's editorial board has never weighed in on a presidential race. It didn't endorse anyone Friday, but it did offer a non-endorsement for Trump, who the board wrote is "unfit for the presidency."

Friday's front page of USA Today

Friday's front page of USA Today

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Editorial record No. 2: The Arizona Republic — formerly the Arizona Republican — has never endorsed a Democrat for president in its 126-year history. Until Tuesday, when it endorsed Clinton: "The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative, and he is not qualified."

Editorial record No. 3, 4, 5: The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle have all endorsed Clinton, breaking their own decades-long streaks of supporting Republicans.

The other Trump story everyone's talking about

A painting by artist Havi Schanz of Donald Trump. Trump used $10,000 of the Trump Foundation’s money to buy the portrait of himself. (Photo provided by Havi Schanz)

The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold has been chronicling the problems with Donald Trump's charitable foundation, and has found quite a few:

Clinton has her own problems with her family's foundation, specifically what critics say is a perception of pay to play. But Trump's problems with his foundation appear to be much more frequent -- and tangible, like potentially breaking the law.

We'll end this Trump newsletter on a smart thought about Trump's appeal

Trump speaks in Austin in August. (Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images)

It comes from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who shared his thoughts on "Morning Joe" Friday morning that Fix Boss Chris Cillizza flagged. Trump's appeal, Matthews said, is primarily an emotional one about the state of our country today:

"[There is a] deep sense that the country is being taken away and betrayed. I think that is so deep with people that they're looking at a guy who's flawed as hell like Trump and at least it's a way of saying I am really angry about the way the elite has treated my country. And it's so deep that it overwhelms all the bad stuff from Trump."

What do you think?

Okay, what let's end on a politics palette cleanser of puppies!

(giphy.com)

(giphy.com)

 
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