x 5. The WaPo wrote about 3 high-level donors seeking access to HRC. What was the result of that effort. 1 got a meeting, and 2 got nothing. — John Stoehr (@johnastoehr) August 23, 2016

x 2/ & it's not the Clinton Foundation. Rather, here's an illustration of what's gone badly wrong in elite political journalism @USATODAY @AP — Thomas Levenson (@TomLevenson) August 24, 2016

Nancy LeTourneau/Washington Monthly:

The Associated Press has just shown us why it is important to be vigilant in how we consume the news as it is reported. They took some interesting information they gathered and spun it into something it wasn’t…scandalous. … That is basically what most every drummed up “scandal” against Hillary Clinton comes down to: from the perspective of the people judging her – it looks bad. Welcome to the world of optics as scandal.

x Giuliani, at the Trump Tampa rally, says Hillary Clinton "will not allow uniformed police officers to be around her" pic.twitter.com/jLdDcZMwFU — Rebecca Sinderbrand (@sinderbrand) August 24, 2016

Matt Yglesias/Vox:

According to their reporting, Clinton spent a remarkably large share of her time as America’s chief diplomat talking to people who had donated money to the Clinton Foundation. She went out of her way to help these Clinton Foundation donors, and her decision to do so raises important concerns about the ethics of her conduct as secretary and potentially as president. It’s a striking piece of reporting that made immediate waves in my social media feed, as political journalists of all stripes retweeted the story’s headline conclusions. Except it turns out not to be true. The nut fact that the AP uses to lead its coverage is wrong, and Braun and Sullivan’s reporting reveals absolutely no unethical conduct. In fact, they foundso little unethical conduct that an enormous amount of space is taken up by a detailed recounting of the time Clinton tried to help a former Nobel Peace Prize winner who’s also the recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

x Clinton is a 'bigot', Trump says (and check out the reaction of the woman at the left of the screen). https://t.co/qO3eq5Q94A — Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) August 25, 2016

Paul Waldman/WaPo:

The latest Clinton email story just isn’t a scandal Are you ready for the shocking news, the scandalous details, the mind-blowing malfeasance? Well hold on to your hat, because here it is: When Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, many people wanted to speak with her. Astonishing, I know. Here’s the truth: every development in any story having to do with anything involving email and Hillary Clinton is going to get trumpeted on the front page as though it were scandalous, no matter what the substance of it actually is. I’ll discuss some reasons why in a moment, but we could have no better evidence than the treatment of this particular story.

x A Mutombo angle only makes it better https://t.co/JDyYfVWsRy pic.twitter.com/vQO7mYTlwW — Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 25, 2016

Jorge Ramos:

It doesn’t matter who you are—a journalist, a politician or a voter—we’ll all be judged by how we responded to Donald Trump. Like it or not, this election is a plebiscite on the most divisive, polarizing and disrupting figure in American politics in decades. And neutrality is not an option. The day after the election will be too late. It was too late when we realized that there were no weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That horrible error of judgment by the Bush administration—and the lack of strength by those opposing the war—cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives. And nobody can even say that we won the war. But hopefully we can learn something from it.

x Trump calls Clinton a bigot bc he (like many conservatives) thinks "bigot" is a term liberals deploy arbitrarily to damage conservatives. — Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 25, 2016

Politico:

Trump’s baffling immigration wobbles Immigration law buffs say his latest comments don’t make any sense. Trump’s gentler language came after he elevated respected Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway last week to be his campaign manager, and he’d been planning to give a policy address on immigration on Thursday — only to have the campaign postpone it indefinitely a few days ago. “Immigration is a very complex issue and to get the solutions right, to come out with your specific plan, should not be rushed,” Conway said Monday night. Indeed, experts say Trump appears to lack the ability or desire to adopt the nuanced language associated with the immigration debate.

x Trump campaign head Bannon bragged only one month ago about his embrace of "alt-right" white nationalists. Jesus. pic.twitter.com/g31jRFfyNj — John Aravosis (@aravosis) August 25, 2016

Politico:

Clinton lands in Reno with a message targeted squarely on center-right Republican voters: Trump’s attempted pivot toward moderation, she will suggest, is a head-fake and the GOP nominee remains too extreme for you. Clinton may not cast her move to zero in on Republicans so explicitly when she takes the stage here to rail against Trump’s position within the “alt-right” — a movement her team has branded as “disturbing” and supportive of a “dystopian” worldview. But coming after a two-week stretch in which Trump has made overtures to minority voters while suggesting he may alter his campaign-defining immigration plan, Clinton’s intended audience includes the Republican-leaning women and educated white populations with whom her opponent is polling poorly.

She is defining him (unfit, inconsistent and an alt right candidate). After years in the public eye, he is not defining her (but he is defining every nutter like Rudy Giuliani that peddles the bizarre health arguments). His voters won’t go anywhere no matter what he does. But there are more of “other voters” than Trump voters. Perhaps Kellyanne Conway will tell him some day.

Harry Enten/Fivethirtyeight:

Trump Is Making More States Competitive. Red States. In other words, in the battle between Trump’s uniqueness as a presidential nominee and political polarization, polarization seems to be winning.

x The British set fire to the White House #OTD in 1814. pic.twitter.com/eOOgAeMEiW — White House History (@WhiteHouseHstry) August 24, 2016