Through July, Donald Trump’s campaign has spent just shy of $7.7 million on Trump-branded products, including reimbursements to Trump-named surrogates, the Washington Post reports.

“Donald Trump’s paid campaign staffers have declared on their personal social media accounts that Muslims are unfit to be U.S. citizens, ridiculed Mexican accents, called for Secretary of State John Kerry to be hanged and stated their readiness for a possible civil war,” according to an Associated Press review of their postings.

“The campaign has employed a mix of veteran political operatives and outsiders. Most come across as dedicated, enthusiastic partisans, but at least seven expressed views that were overtly racially charged, supportive of violent actions or broadly hostile to Muslims.”

Rick Klein: “If that was the best week of Donald Trump’s campaign, as his new campaign manager contends, even his closest allies are grading him on a serious curve. Trump just fired his previous campaign chief, of course, after a series of damaging revelations about his ties to Russia. He also disclosed a campaign-finance report that revealed his operation to be ‘more concert tour than presidential campaign,’ in the judgment of The New York Times. His new and overt efforts to reach out to black and Hispanic voters were clumsy and contradictory; even know it’s not clear if he would go ahead with his plan for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.”

“But he did go a week without seeming to offend a new ethnic group, and made his first move in the direction of apologizing for his past insults. Most importantly to the legions of Republicans who would rather support the GOP nominee than not, he showed that he’s trying to win. He may not be capable of long-term discipline. For now, though, Trump appears to be listening to advice of those around him.”

From Ben Pershing of National Journal:

1. Trump blurts something out on TV
2. Media analyzes strategic “shift”
3. There is no “shift” (and therefore no strategy).

Donald Trump “began preparing on Sunday for his first general election debate against Hillary Clinton, with a meeting at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.,” the New York Times reports.

“Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chairman who helped prepare George Bush to debate Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race, is advising Mr. Trump as he begins to focus on the debate, scheduled for Sept. 26 at Hofstra University on Long Island.”

Donald Trump “is leaning heavily on Republican Party organizations to provide crucial campaign functions like getting out the vote, digital outreach and fund-raising, at a time when some leading Republicans have called for party officials to cut off Mr. Trump and focus instead on maintaining control of Congress,” the New York Times reports.

“Despite an influx of campaign cash from small donors in July, Mr. Trump’s operation still largely resembles the bare-bones outfit that he rode to victory during the primary season, more concert tour than presidential campaign, according to interviews and documents filed with the Federal Election Commission through Saturday night. And some Republicans believe he is effectively out of time to invest in the kind of large-scale infrastructure that the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, will bring to the polls in November.”

Washington Post: “Until this week, it had been possible for party elders to convince themselves that Trump might prove to be a passing storm in their ranks rather than a portent of climate change. But to their dismay, the party standard-bearer has now signaled that he intends to go for broke in the final stretch of the campaign.”

“Trump’s decision to ditch his establishment-bred campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in favor of Breitbart News executive Stephen Bannon, who shares Trump’s scorched-earth approach to politics and his worldview, is perhaps the most overt example of the mogul’s closing strategy.”

“Theirs is an amorphous alternative to traditional conservatism — often associated with the ‘alt right’ movement — that is leery of liberal immigration, multiculturalism, military involvement overseas and free trade. Its critics also accuse the alt right of flirting with white supremacism, anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance.”

Greg Sargent: “Last night, Donald Trump delivered a speech in which he spoke in soothing tones about the need to unify the country and expressed ‘regret’ about any remarks that have caused ‘personal pain,’ though he didn’t specify which particular remarks he regrets. This led some commentators to suggest that another ‘pivot‘ is underway.”

“This morning, Trump released his first general election ad, an ugly and dishonest production which shows he isn’t changing a thing.”

First Read: “These kind of shake-ups don’t happen when a presidential campaign is winning. The last time we remember when such an overhaul took place so late in the game was back in 2004, when John Kerry made significant changes to his campaign team. And here’s the current reality for Trump: He’s trailing in national polls by an average of about seven points, per RealClearPolitics; he’s behind in almost every battleground-state poll we’ve seen, including our NBC/WSJ/Marist polls from last week; and he’s losing to Clinton in the NBC battleground map.”

Politico: Trump’s Shrinking electoral map.

For members: How Clinton Is Crushing Trump In One Chart

“Well, possibly I do, but, you know, I am who I am. It’s me. I don’t wanna change. Everybody talks about, ‘Oh, well you’re gonna pivot, you’re gonna’ — I don’t wanna pivot. I mean, you have to be you. If you start pivoting, you’re not being honest with people.”

— Donald Trump, in an interview with WKBT-TV, on whether he needs to change after facing an onslaught of bad polls.