memeorandum: For the Separation of Stadium and State (Jonah Goldberg/National Review)

4:00 PM ET, September 16, 2016

Top Items:

John Hinderaker / Power Line:

Trump Outsmarts the Press — Sometimes you really have to hand it to Donald Trump. The press has been after him recently about whether he believes the Hillary Clinton campaign's claim that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. For years, the press has obsessed on “birtherism,” …

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Hot Air and The American Spectator

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Network pools refuse to cover Trump hotel tour — In a show of joint defiance, the major television networks collectively voted to pull a camera and erase video of Donald Trump giving a tour of his hotel, a protest of the campaign preventing any editorial presence on the tour.

Discussion: alan.com, TVNewser, Talking Points Memo, Washington Times and The Gateway Pundit, more at Mediagazer »

NBC News:

First Read: Why Trump Can't Escape His ‘Birther’ Past — Donald Trump's campaign - but not the candidate - says Obama was born in US 3:00 — First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Discussion: Politico, Washington Post, New York Times, alan.com, Mediaite, New York Magazine, Vox, ABC News, The Times of Israel, Hot Air, Independent Journal Review and The Atlantic

Robert Costa / Washington Post:

Trump defiant as polls rise, won't say Obama was born in United States — CANTON, Ohio — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in an interview here that he remains unwilling to say that President Obama is born in the United States, that he is more bullish than ever on his chances …

Donald J Trump for President:

TRUMP CAMPAIGN STATEMENT — “Hillary Clinton's campaign first raised this issue to smear then-candidate Barack Obama in her very nasty, failed 2008 campaign for President. This type of vicious and conniving behavior is straight from the Clinton Playbook. As usual, however, Hillary Clinton was too weak to get an answer.

New York Times:

Trump Drops False ‘Birther’ Theory, but Floats a New One: Clinton Started It — Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his “birther” campaign on Friday, tersely acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years.

Andrew Prokop / Vox:

Trump fanned a conspiracy about Obama's birthplace for years. Now he pretends Clinton started it. — The GOP nominee was the highest-profile figure to question President Obama's birthplace. — One of the oddest features of the 2016 presidential race is that the Republican nominee …

Discussion: The Atlantic, Washington Post, Politico, Talking Points Memo, Slate, The Week, heave-ho.org, The Concourse, Correct The Record and Mediaite

Media Matters for America:

Seven Reasons The Media Shouldn't Let Trump Move On From Birtherism — The Trump campaign released a lie-filled statement that sought to put to rest criticism of Donald Trump for building his political image on racist, conspiratorial claims that President Obama was not born in the United States.

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Mother Jones, BuzzFeed, Mediaite, Guardian, Hullabaloo and WND

Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:

Trump is trying to rewrite his history of birtherism. This is what really happened. — ‘We have to keep the suspense going’ — Since 2011, Donald Trump has been the most prominent spokesperson for birtherism—the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo, NBC News, RedState, ABC News, Mediaite, Media Matters for America and Politicus USA

Libby Nelson / Vox:
Donald Trump's birther speech is a commercial for his new hotel

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Hit & Run and alan.com

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Trump Preps New Round of Racist Agitation

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Mother Jones, Vox, Business Insider and twitchy.com

Alex Pappas / The Daily Caller:
Media Outraged After Trump Tricks Them To Cover Endorsements From Military Heroes

Discussion: alan.com

Nick Gass / Politico:
Trump concedes Obama was born in the U.S.

Discussion: ABC News, RedState, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, Fox News, Independent Journal Review, The Frisky, Infowars, Business Insider, The Week, Daily Kos, NPR, Guardian, fox8.com, Politicus USA and Joe.My.God.

Media Matters for America:
As Trump Prepares To Discuss His Birtherism, Top Adviser Roger Stone Says Trump Still Has …

Discussion: Mediaite

Tierney Sneed / Talking Points Memo:
Trump Introduced By A Birther At Event Where He Walked Back Birtherism

Discussion: Vox

Tierney Sneed / Talking Points Memo:
So Will Trump Follow Through On His $5 Million Birther Charity Promise?

Discussion: Forbes, USA Today, Politico and Joe.My.God.

Caitlin MacNeal / Talking Points Memo:
Megyn Kelly Grills Trump Spox On Birtherism: 'That's A Dodge!'

Discussion: The Week

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:
Trump Said In 2015 And 2016 He Didn't Know If Obama Birth Certificate Was Real

Discussion: Mother Jones, The New Civil Rights Movement, Washingtonian and The Week

Nick Gass / Politico:
Clinton ad: Trump ‘still the birther-in-chief’

Discussion: ABC News and Joe.My.God.

Katherine Krueger / Talking Points Memo: WATCH LIVE: Trump To Make ‘Big Announcement’ On Birther Views At 10 AM ET

David Sims / The Atlantic:

The Embarrassment of Jimmy Fallon — The Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, went on NBC's Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon yesterday. Here, in chronological order, is every question Fallon asked his guest. —This is getting real. You still have time, do you still want to do this?

Discussion: ThinkProgress and The Daily Caller

Maxwell Strachan / The Huffington Post:
People Are Justifiably Infuriated With How Jimmy Fallon Handled Trump

Discussion: BizPac Review, The New York Observer, Hollywood Reporter, Shareblue, Business Insider, Infowars, Raw Story, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Harper Neidig / The Hill:

Third-party candidates miss cut for first debate — The Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday that Hillary Clinton — and their running mates are the only candidates who will participate in the first debates. — This means Trump and Clinton will take part in the Sept. 26 debate …

Discussion: Political Wire

Gabriel Debenedetti / Politico:
Gary Johnson cuts into Clinton's lead

Discussion: The Week

Jesse Byrnes / The Hill:

Kasich: ‘Very unlikely’ I'll vote for Trump … Ohio Gov. John Kasich isn't ruling out voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump — , though he says it's “highly unlikely” he'll support his former GOP rival. — “I'll let everybody know when, but I think my actions have spoken very loudly …

Discussion: Macleans.ca, ABC News, CNN, The Daily Caller, Common Dreams, Hot Air, BizPac Review and Business Insider

Louis Nelson / Politico:
Obama: ‘I was pretty confident about where I was born’

Discussion: ABC News

Todd S. Purdum / Politico:

What's Really Ailing Hillary — She wasn't always like this. She wasn't always a woman who could almost collapse in public, then emerge from seclusion a couple of hours later announcing, “I'm feeling great,” as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't already known for two days that she had pneumonia.

Discussion: Independent Journal Review

Matt Taibbi / Rolling Stone:

Stop Whining About ‘False Balance’ — Everyone wants to blame reporters for the rise of Donald Trump. How about the media consumer? — All Stories » — News media outlets are increasingly coming under fire for the sin of “false balance” or “false equivalency.”

Raf Sanchez / Telegraph:

American commandos ‘forced to run away’ from US-backed Syrian rebels — Video footage appears to show US commandos fleeing a Syrian town under a barrage of abuse and insults hurled at them by fighters from the American-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group.

Discussion: Pamela Geller, Sputnik International, Vocativ, Jihad Watch, Vox Popoli and France 24

Carl Hulse / New York Times:

Why the Senate Couldn't Pass a Crime Bill Both Parties Backed — WASHINGTON — A major criminal-justice overhaul bill seemed destined to be the bipartisan success story of the year, consensus legislation that showed lawmakers could still rise above politics and take on a serious societal problem.