CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Donald Trump hit back at a woman who accused him of sexual assault by accusing her of being ugly and claimed a Mexican billionaire was orchestrating his downfall. One of his teleprompters fell off its stands and he dismantled another one. Some of Trump’s supporters pummeled a protester and some called for the jailing of another woman who has accused Trump of sexual assault. Another supporter yelled at a television reporter speaking to a camera, “Jackass, shut up."

Friday was positively placid on the Trump campaign trail in North Carolina — at least compared to the sturm und drang of the day before. After Trump spent Thursday blaming an avalanche of new sexual assault allegations against him on a vast globalist conspiracy at an expo center in West Palm Beach and more than 15,000 of his supporters showered reporters with boos and angry chants at an evening rally in Cincinnati, a series of events on Friday that would have boggled the mind a year ago simply amounted to a breather in the presidential campaign’s frantic race to the bottom.


Yes, Trump appeared to call his accusers unattractive liars and invited women to come forward to accuse the president of sexual assault, but the bar for shock has been raised.

Aside from the physical assault of a protester carrying an American flag and the chants of “lock her up” directed at an alleged victim of sexual assault, an early afternoon event at an outdoor amphitheater in Greensboro had the air of a picnic.

One man pacing the lawn at the back of the venue interjected his chants of “Blacks for Trump” with a call for Trump to “Stay on the issues.”

After the rally, in an amazing sign of the exasperation Trump is causing for many of his advisers, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway herself joked on Twitter that it had been she who was shouting the advice at Trump. When Conway briefly appeared in the press pen later in the day, a reporter told her he enjoyed the tweet, and she responded, “At least you have a sense of humor.”

When Trump — in the middle of an extended riff on the sexual assault charges mounting against him — revealed that his advisers told him to stick to the issues and asked the crowd if he should stop talking about sexual assault, at least one woman in the crowd in Greensboro responded, “Yes.”

Trump’s evening rally in Charlotte was tame by the standards of this week. A Women for Trump group, which included the candidate’s daughter-in-law Lara Lee, surrogates Diamond and Silk, and former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault, touted their work in recent days providing Hurricane Matthew relief with the help, they said, of a $30,000 check from Trump.

While Trump has repeatedly insisted on jailing Hillary Clinton this week — a position that has appalled law enforcement officials of both parties — top surrogate Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, inched back from that brink. While Giuliani said that Clinton was guilty of multiple federal crimes he also spoke up for the due process of law. To a crowd chanting “lock her up,” he admonished, “That only comes after an indictment, a trial and a conviction.”

Later, in Charlotte, the tumbling of one of Trump’s teleprompters from its stand provided some levity. Trump recalled being told by advisers to begin using the devices after he clinched the Republican nomination. “All of a sudden they said, ‘Well now you’re running in the election you need teleprompters.’ Well I like teleprompters. They’re fine, but I think its kind of cooler without them,” Trump said, then proceeded to dismantle his second teleprompter and continue his stump speech without them.

At the end of the Charlotte rally, a handful of attendees stuck around the back of the press pen and chatted up reporters. A woman stopped in front of the pen to thank those journalists who were doing their job and encourage them to be objective when filing their stories. A solitary cry from another attendee of “CNN, don’t mess it up” almost sounded like helpful encouragement.