Politico: “Trump’s poll numbers, while still hitting a ceiling below 50 percent, in the year since Charlottesville have climbed up to a high of 44%, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Trump is in high demand as a campaign surrogate among Republican candidates.”

“His supportive gang of Fox News hosts have become more ethno-nationalist in their rhetoric than they were a year ago. Meanwhile, Trump himself is less constrained than he was after Charlottesville. At his campaign rallies and on Twitter, he has become more unadulterated in his critiques of what he calls the ‘fake news’ media.”

“The advisers who tried to serve as a check on his rash impulses have since left the administration and have been replaced with people more likely to let Trump set his own agenda. And, as he did on Friday, the president has continued to inflame racial tensions — something Democrats and Republicans alike see as fundamental to his power.”

ProPublica and Frontline have identified a white supremacist who punched Charlottesville protesters as Michael Miselis, a PhD student who has a federal security clearance as a systems engineer for Northrop Grumman.

“Northrop Grumman did not respond to several requests for comment. However, interviews with current and former Northrop employees, as well as an internal email, make clear the company knows of Miselis’ actions in Charlottesville and involvement with RAM. Miselis informed his superiors about his contact with reporters from ProPublica and FRONTLINE, as is required by any individual who holds a higher-level security clearance.”

“So far, it seems, the company has taken no action against Miselis, who remains employed.”

The National Park Service has approved an application for white nationalists to rally near the White House in August to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally, the Washington Post reports.

Washington Post: “Throughout his public life, Trump has pitted one group of Americans against another and inserted himself in racial controversies… As he leads his party into the potentially perilous midterm election five months from now, Trump is trying to make cultural identity a central theme of the Republican pitch to voters. His messages have been amplified by his surrogates as well as by friendly broadcasters on Fox News Channel and elsewhere in the conservative media.”

“Trump is calculating that by playing to people’s fears and anxieties he can maximize turnout among hard-core supporters to counterbalance evident enthusiasm on the Democratic side. Fueling Trump’s approach, advisers say, is an unremitting fear of his own: that his base could abandon him if he is deemed too weak on immigration, which was a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign.”

A GoFundMe campaign is raising money to send a Mariachi band and taco truck to the offices of the New York City lawyer who threatened to call immigration authorities on Spanish-speaking restaurant employees.