New York Times: “It was the latest sign that the president hopes to win a second term in office by playing to racial and nationalist themes that shock the consciences of many Americans, but seem only to delight his most ardent supporters.”

“Mr. Trump doubled down with relish on his previous calls for the four congresswomen — Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley — to ‘go back’ to their countries of origin, even though all but one were born in the United States and all four are citizens. It left no doubt that he was undaunted by furious condemnations of his remarks as racist, including a Tuesday vote by the House.”

Stuart Rothenberg: “There is no doubt that Trump needs to motivate his base to win a second term, and his tweets and comments about immigrants and ‘socialism’ are, at least in part, intended to energize his loyal supporters and demonize the entire Democratic Party. On one level, that certainly makes sense…”

“But too much of Trump’s rhetoric does something else that actually undermines his prospects — it enflames Democrats of all stripes, reminding them why they feel they must defeat the president next year.”

“In other words, Trump is a turnout machine for the Democrats, as well.”

“The DNC sent a security alert to 2020 presidential campaigns Wednesday afternoon warning them not to use the popular smartphone application FaceApp,” CNN reports.

Said the alert: “This app allows users to perform different transformations on photos of people, such as aging the person in the picture. Unfortunately, this novelty is not without risk: FaceApp was developed by Russians.”