Is Trump's time on the green a handicap? REUTERS/David Moir/File Photo

Four years ago, Mitt Romney made a pre-convention trip to Great Britain (along with Poland and Israel), meeting with foreign leaders. It did not go well.

This year, Donald Trump is making his own trip to the United Kingdom. But he's exactly not following in Romney's footsteps.

"On Friday, police and antiterrorism agents plan to surround [Trump's Turnberry] resort on Scotland’s rugged west coast, where Trump plans to arrive by helicopter with his family and U.S. Secret Service agents, take questions from reporters and cut a ribbon," report Jenna Johnson and Tom Hamburger. "He will then travel to another golf course he owns along Scotland’s east coast, taking the media and security entourage with him.

"The country’s top leaders, embroiled in Thursday’s historic Brexit vote, have declined to attend either event. Trump also has not scheduled any private meetings with government officials or any discussion of foreign policy, the activities usually associated with a presidential candidate trip overseas.

"Instead, Trump will promote Trump. The two-day trip to two courses in the United Kingdom — both of which are losing money — provides yet another example of Trump using his political position to promote his personal brand.

"The journey is the latest example of the fuzzy, and sometimes invisible, line between Trump the presumptive GOP nominee and Trump the businessman — an arrangement that many ethics experts, including many fellow Republicans, view as inappropriate or worse. They say Trump should take formal steps to separate himself from his business and financial holdings, both domestic and foreign, as he seeks to enter the White House, just as Mitt Romney and other candidates have done.

"'You can’t run for national office and have financial entanglements like this,' said former elections enforcement official Ken Gross, who has advised presidential candidates from both parties and who says Trump should formally sever his ties with his businesses. ..."

Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Trump looked to eliminate at least one set of money questions before heading across the Atlantic; his campaign announced that he had finally converted the roughly $50 million he has lent his campaign into an actual gift.

Trump isn't a typical candidate, and the timing of this move isn't necessarily typical either. Many wealthy candidates "lend" their campaigns money with no intention of asking for repayment; most tend to forgive those loans after Election Day. But Donald Trump couldn't afford to wait, says Chris Cillizza.

"This isn't new money Trump is donating to the campaign. It's money that has already been given — and spent. But, that misses how important — and necessary — what Trump did actually is: In forgiving the personal loans, he turned them into contributions. What that means in plain English is that he can't refund that $50 million to himself out of the campaign's coffers — now or ever.

"Many major Republican donors have been sitting on the sidelines for the seven-plus weeks Trump has been the presumptive nominee. There are lots of reasons for their unwillingness to back Trump more fully, but the biggest one was that they simply didn't trust that Trump was genuinely committed to the race.

"Why spend time and political capital — not to mention money — on a guy who, at any moment, might take the cash you collected and use it not to beat Hillary Clinton but rather to make himself whole again? The idea of helping Trump stay exactly as rich as he was before this campaign began didn't sit well with major donors, many of whom fundamentally disagree with him on lots of policy matters as well. That Trump had repeatedly insisted he would forgive his loans — and repeatedly refused to do so — also didn't make these donors particularly sanguine. ..."

We'll see in the next FEC report whether today's announcement, along with the flurry of moves his campaign made this week, has had the intended effect.

Of course, the move won't answer all the Trump money questions. A new one emerged today, via Matea Gold: "What is Left Hand Enterprises and why did the Trump campaign pay it $730,000? ...[a] rapid series of payments — $730,637 over five days — made Left Hand the 10th biggest vendor to the Trump campaign for the entire election cycle.

"...Left Hand was hired at a time when the campaign had two separate budgets: one for headquarters and travel expenses approved by then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and another for state operations overseen by campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to people familiar with the internal workings. The invoices for Left Hand went through the budget controlled by Manafort, a person with knowledge of the situation said."

Trump's current right hand man isn't answering questions on what he may have paid Left Hand to do. Direct mail experts said it was "most likely...that Left Hand functioned as a pass-through for an established firm," in a cycle when some GOP political professionals have been anxious about the public impact of working for the presumptive nominee. For some, one business in particular came to mind:

(No Ned Flanders comment available either.)

TRAIL MIX:

Raleigh. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

—The State Department confirmed Thursday that Hillary Clinton "failed to turn over a copy of a key message involving problems caused by her use of a private homebrew email server," reported the Associated Press. "The email was included within messages exchanged Nov. 13, 2010, between Clinton and one of her closest aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. ...it was not among the tens of thousands of emails Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence. 

"...Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said she provided 'all potentially work-related emails' that were still in her possession when she received the 2014 request from the State Department. 'Secretary Clinton had some emails with Huma that Huma did not have, and Huma had some emails with Secretary Clinton that Secretary Clinton did not have,' Fallon said. Fallon declined to say whether Clinton deleted any work-related emails before they were reviewed by her legal team. ..." 

—The new campaign ad from Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) boasts that he "bucked his party to say Donald Trump is not fit to be commander-in-chief," and met with Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Even More

—Without Garland, the eight-member court split on a case involving President Obama's immigration plan, which left a lower court ruling in place that the president had exceeded his powers — and delivered a concrete win for the Senate GOP's SCOTUS strategy. In another hot-button case, the court upheld the University of Texas's consideration of race in college admissions decisions, 4-3.

Both cases could have a real impact on the trail, notes Aaron Blake: "One is a substantial decision in favor of the political left on affirmative action, and the other is a major setback for the Obama administration on illegal immigration. But both, in a somewhat similar way, have the potential to ignite passions in the 2016 campaign — because both involve long-simmering tensions over race that have occasionally boiled to the surface this year."

The immigration decision in particular "is being hailed by GOP leaders and grass-roots alike, but it also pumps new life into an issue that the party would probably rather not keep talking about in the 2016 election — both because its party is split on the issue and because it continues to worry (for good reason) that Trump's rhetoric on issues such as immigration and affirmative action is and could continue to alienate black and Latino voters."

(For the record, Trump's initial reaction to the news was peak pivot: a relatively mild tweetstorm, followed by a link to a carefully worded campaign statement.)

—Pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now launched a new spot echoing the presumptive Republican nominee's critique of Hillary Clinton's reaction to her husband's '90s sex scandals: "So who is all for women, until she isn’t? Hillary Clinton."

Rebuilding America Now: It Takes Two

—House Democrats' sit-in over gun policy ended today after 26 hours, and the House went into recess until July 5. But just because this is over doesn't mean it's over: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)....declined to say specifically what type of future protests Democrats plan to employ. 'You’ll see more spontaneity as to the form things will take,' she told reporters Thursday afternoon."

A bipartisan Senate gun-control bill failed to nab 60 votes needed for cloture — it did survive a test vote to keep it alive, reported Karoun Demirjian, but "it is unclear whether or when the measure will see an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor."

—Corey Lewandowski started the week crafting Trump strategy. He'll end it with a new job talking about that strategy on CNN, where he made his debut tonight.

"Donald Trump's former campaign manager, who was relieved of his duties on Monday, obviously brings knowledge of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee that few can match," says Callum Borchers. "But he also brings unparalleled baggage, including an incident in which he reportedly pushed a reporter from the channel that now employs him — CNN's Noah Gray — away from Trump as the reporter tried to ask a question."

Here's a #TBT to a Lewandowski run-in last year with one of his new colleagues (clip below).

—Speaking of Trump surrogates: The presumptive GOP nominee has accused Hillary Clinton of wanting to eliminate the Second Amendment. But so far this cycle, only one 2016 presidential candidate has said the provision itself should be up for discussion. And it wasn't Hillary Clinton. 

"Let’s put on the table — what is the reason for the Second Amendment? And is there a reason that we need to change those things right now?" Trump surrogate Ben Carson — who is definitely not a gun control supporter — said today on MSNBC. "And let’s put the data on the table and let’s talk about like intelligent people, rather than getting in our respective corners and hurling insults at each other..."

Ben Carson: Let’s Put Second Amendment On The Table | Andrea Mitchell | MSNBC

#TBT: From Trump's deposition in the Trump University lawsuit, reported today:

—It isn't a throwback, but today sure felt a lot like April, with Bernie Sanders making a big speech in New York tonight, and appearing on Stephen Colbert's show.

"Never lose your sense of outrage," he told the audience at The Town Hall in New York. "...Election days come and go, but what is much more important is that political and social revolutions continue. Our goal from day one has been to transform this nation, and that is the fight we are going to continue."

The Vermont senator, "who has no plans to endorse or appear with Hillary Clinton ahead of the Democratic National Convention, is in the midst of his own transition," report Dave Weigel and Aaron Davis. "Once a quietly influential senator, he has rejoined that body as a political icon, trailed (for the time being) by a retinue of Secret Service agents. At state conventions and the platform-drafting meetings, he is winning concessions on the issues he once talked about to an invisible C-SPAN audience.

"...not since 1992, when once and future California Gov. Jerry Brown ran a less-successful populist campaign for the presidency, has a defeated candidate kept his campaign going until the convention. Sanders has watched allies such as Merkley acknowledge that Clinton will be the party’s nominee. He has quietly abandoned an effort to convince superdelegates to switch to his campaign. Meanwhile, her campaign’s delegate advantage and knowledge of party rules has allowed her to consolidate control."

His campaign sent a message to supporters Thursday afternoon, calling for input on their platform priorities: "What do you want? ...We're taking our campaign, our values, and our movement to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia." Also Thursday, he published an opinion piece in The Washington Post with the answer: "Here's what we want."

—Reporter David Fahrenthold has made hundreds of phone calls this week, but he's still looking for any nonprofit that might have received a personal donation from Donald Trump within the past few years; if you're aware of any charitable donation directly from the mogul (not his foundation), you can reach Fahrenthold here...

—Trump has hired Bob Paduchik, who led both of George W. Bush's successful Ohio campaigns, to run his operation in the state. ("Mr. Trump ran a great campaign, and he won," Paduchik told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "I’ve been a Republican all my life. I’m happy to support Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee.")

So the Trump campaign week that began with a high-profile firing and a jaw-droppingly awful fundraising report has also included the arrival of a string of new senior advisers, including a new national political director; the launch of a rapid response effort; the first official fundraising email; the reported signaling of its preferred super PAC; and the hiring of a veteran operative to lead their operation in a critical swing state. And it isn't over yet...

YOUR DAILY TRAIL PIT STOP: As we type, #Brexit referendum votes are being counted in the UK. To mark the question of the hour, we give you The Clash:

The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go