RACHEL MADDOW (HOST): You know, the secret ear piece thing, that's journalistically sound compared to the rest of the stuff they're putting out there. That could be sort of a mainstream scandal. This year in 2016 with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket for the Republican Party, Alex Jones is no longer just broadcasting to your fillings and your molars. He is apparently what the upper echelons of the Republican presidential campaign is reading and citing and circulating, even at this late date in the campaign. And matters because it's not just the kook fringe, it's just not the sort of remunerative conspiracy theory world of that part of the conservative media machine. It's not even just whacky people who have made their way into Republican politics at a surprising height. This is now the top of the Republican ticket. And it's after Labor Day, and this is a presidential year. And so, all day today, after Donald Trump Jr. tweeted the Infowars Alex Jones conspiracy theory, all day today, this was the headline about the commander-in-chief forum at the mega-conservative news site that drives more traffic online than anything else on the right.

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This is like a snapshot, a microcosm of why this campaign is hard to follow. Sort of why it's hard to get a sense of what the narrative is of the campaign this year. Why it can be sort of maddening to follow what's going on in the campaign. Why it can be sort of painfully ridiculous to try to follow what's going on in the campaign on any given day now.