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But a super-charged presidential race can be an unforgiving entry point to national politics. For Donald Jr., the intensifying scrutiny has at times -- in particular over the past two weeks -- revealed a propensity for damaging missteps.

Still, the campaign insists Trump Jr. has been "a tremendous asset" all the way through.

"Speaking the truth might upset those who would rather be politically correct than safe," Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told CNN in an email. "But the American people want a change, and only Donald Trump will do what's needed to protect us."

Here are a few of the things Trump Jr. has done of late:

"If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem."

While many Trump supporters chimed in to agree, the tweet provoked a broader backlash. Mars Candy eventually chimed in to distance themselves from the message.

"Skittles are candy; refugees are people," the company said in a statement. "It's an inappropriate analogy. We respectfully refrain from further comment, as that could be misinterpreted as marketing."

The moral question aside, Washington Post reporter Philip Bump pointed out a math problem.

Donald Trump is on track to be the first modern presidential candidate withhold his tax information. The candidate and the campaign have for months said their reason for keeping a lid on the returns was an ongoing audit.

The decision was made, he said, because Trump has "got a 12,000-page tax return that would create ... financial auditors out of every person in the country," and have them "asking questions that would distract from (his father's) main message."

Complaining about media coverage is part of almost every campaign's playbook. References to "the gas chamber" are not.

During an interview with Philadelphia-based conservative talk radio host Chris Stigall, he first described the press as the Clinton campaign's "number one surrogate."

But then, this: "They've let her slide on every indiscrepancy (sic), on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of the thing. I mean, if Republicans were doing that, they'd be warming up the gas chamber right now. It's a very different system -- there's nothing fair about it."

The campaign denied that Trump Jr. was making a Holocaust reference -- the Nazis used gas chambers as a tool of their World War II-era genocide -- and that the comment, a bit of hyperbole, was really about capital punishment more generally.

"The liberal, dishonest media is so quick to attack one of the Trumps that they never let the truth get in the way of a good smear," Trump spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement.

The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy group, was less sure.

Clinton's campaign was especially biting, turning its response into an attack on Trump the candidate, with chairman John Podesta saying the son's language is "probably pretty consistent with the type of rhetoric he heard around the house growing up."

As Clinton was feeling the fallout from her "basket of deplorables" comment -- in which she initially suggested that half of Trump's supporters fit in a group composed of the "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it" -- Trump Jr. made headlines with a controversial Instagram post.

The photoshop composition featured his father leading a band of "deplorables," with political allies and the cartoon "Pepe the Frog" by his side. What Trump Jr. later said he did not know, was that "Pepe" has been appropriated as a mascot and preferred meme of the white supremacist alt-right movement.

Asked about the post by ABC News on Sunday, Trump Jr. pleaded ignorance.

"I've never even heard of Pepe the Frog," he said. "I had no idea there was any connotation there."

His father's feed might get more attention, but Trump Jr. is just as active -- and sometimes more controversial.

He often retweets the actor James Woods, who frequently shares suspect anti-Clinton media.

"What is wrong with her?" Woods asked in a recent tweet, shared by Trump Jr., that quoted another user who wrote: "BREAKING!!! Collapsing Hillary Clinton Heavily Sedated as she responds to Donald Trump comment & #Chelsea !! #Valium"

After a recent NBC News forum, Trump Jr. retweeted a post from right wing radio host John Cardillo, who was among the conspiracy theorists saying Clinton had been wearing an earpiece during the event.

"Well look at that," Cardillo wrote. "Last night #CrookedHillary gets caught with #HillarysEarPiece. Today a new ear covering hairdo."

A look back at Trump Jr. in the pre-campaign days yielded some tasteless commentary on motherhood and a family employee.

"Ever notice that if u get a herd of mothers together they aren't physically capable of talking about anything but birth pregnancy & diapers?" he asked in July 2011.

About a year later, he offered this gem on the devotion of a particular employee, who Trump Jr. said skipped a family wedding to be at work.

"At dinner w our greenskeeper who missed his sister's wedding 2 work (luv loyalty 2 us) "No big deal hopefully she'll have another someday";)" Trump Jr. tweeted.

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Donald Trump Jr. steps in it again -- again - CNNPolitics.com

The race across the combined battlegrounds is as tight as can be, tied 42 percentto 42 percent.

Clinton was up one point last week, and was up two points back on Labor Day weekend. Voters in these states are still looking for change, while the partisan divide remains particularly deep.

Fifty-five percentof battleground voters want to see big changes in the nations politics and economy in the next few years. Forty-threepercentwant some changes and only 2 percentthink things are fine and not in need of much change. Trump leads by a wide margin on being trusted to change Washington: Forty-seven percenttrust Trump to do it, 20 percenttrust that Clinton can do it. Nine percentof independents trust Clinton can change Washington. Only 47 percentof Democrats trust Clinton to change Washington. A similar 41 percentof Democrats trust neither candidate to do it.

And to Donald Trumps voters, Trump represents that larger chance for change. By a roughly five to one margin, Trumps voters say their support is more about a chance to change politics as usual (49 percent) than it is just about Trump himself, as a person, just 9 percent. And 42 percent say it is both, so the change component is present for almost all of Trumps voters, in some part.

Clinton does lead 47 percentto 39 percent on being trusted to handle the job well day-to-day, and by 43 percentto 34 percenton being trusted to act in a way that America can be proud of. Twenty-three percentthink neither would.

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Washington Post political columnist Philip Bump joins "CBS This Morning: Saturday" to discuss why Donald Trump's walk-back of comments about Pres...

One reason this race remains tight and most have made up their minds: partisans have very negative outlooks on what might happen if the other side wins. Eighty-six percentof Democrats say the country might be damaged beyond repair if Trump wins, and 83 percentof Republicans think the country might be damaged beyond repair if Clinton wins.

Underlying part of the call for change are the pervasive, negative views of the economy. While reports this week suggest the economy by many traditional measures was doing better, many voters dont say it is. Fifty-fivepercentsay its in bad shape. The reason, on the whole, is that many voters dont feel the gains are going to them, specifically, nor that opportunity is available for all.

Sixty percentoutright call the economy unfairly rigged in that only certain people get advantages that others dont. Only one third think it works fairly to reward hard work. In response to reports that things are better, 42 percentsay maybe for some people, but not for people like me. And as many previous studies have shown, these kinds of evaluations arent always economic, theyre often political --based on who controls the White House, in that Democrats are more likely to say things are good, while Republicans say theyre bad. So the president gets the largest share of blame for the economy among those who say things are bad (67 percentsay he himself is a big reason the economy is bad) and he also gets the most credit for the economy (48 percent, the top answer on the list) among those who think things are good. This is over other factors such as availability of jobs, globalization, and technological changes. Asked who they thinkhasgained since the last recession, voters say banks (64 percentsay so) and large businesses. Who has lost? Blue-collar workers, and a majority 52 percent- say people like me.

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Hillary Clinton rallied supporters in North Carolina, returning to the campaign trail after her bout with pneumonia became public. See her full r...

With regard to the discussion of Hillary Clintons pneumonia last week a majority calls it a matter of disclosure more so than health (51 percent) while also feeling that it did raise larger issues about Clintons health Republicans in particular say this - but voters overall feel nonetheless it was still blown out of proportion.

Following the controversy over Hillary Clintons comment about Donald Trumps supporters (which Democrats say was telling it like it is but which Republicans and independents saw as an insult), the survey looked at how each candidatesvoters feel about the other side. We asked Clinton voters why they think Trumps voters are with Trump, and vice versa.Sixty-eight percentof Clintons voters think Trumps voters are racially insensitive. Seventy-six percentof Clintons voters feel others are voting for Trump because Trump is fooling them. Seventy-three percentof Trump voters feel Clintons voters are looking for special privileges. And 83 percentof Trumps voters say Clinton is fooling her voters. Taken together, theviews voters hold of those who disagree with them politically provideyet another sign of the continuing political divide.

This CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker is a panel study based on 4202 interviews conducted on the internet of registered voters in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The margin of error is 1.9%.

CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker, Methods: Battlegrounds, September 18, 2016

CBS News 2016 Battleground Tracker: Battlegrounds, September 18, 2016

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Poll: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton tied across ...

Donald Trump on Friday pulled off his latest media stunt, scoring more than 20 minutes of free live TV time to tout the endorsement of more than a dozen veterans and to talk up his new hotel in Washington after he and his campaign had promised he would address his longstanding, controversial "birther" position.

Then, he made a 67-word statement stating that he now believes President Barack Obama was born in the US, and quickly abandoned the podium -- leaving reporters bellowing questions into the ether.

None of us were surprised.

After all, Friday's circus was nothing short of standard operating procedure for the real estate mogul and his media-bashing campaign -- and just the latest example of how Trump fueled his political rise through his unparalleled mastery of the media.

But this time, there weren't just a few shouted questions from reporters. Instead, Trump stepped away from the mic amid a cacophony of cheering supporters -- more than 100 of whom separated Trump from the press -- and reporters, some standing on chairs, shouting dozens of questions at the top of our lungs.

"When did you change your mind about Obama being born in the US?" I shouted.

"What took you so long to make this decision?" shouted another reporter.

"Why won't you answer our questions?"

And then, he's gone. Trump had just changed a signature position he's held for years with a few dozen words and no explanation of why he had suddenly changed his mind. And he also notched 51 days since his last news conference.

The moment was emblematic of Trump's treatment of the press throughout the campaign -- particularly in the last 24 hours.

Reporters covering this campaign -- as I have for the last 15 months -- have long grown used to Trump lobbing insults our way, shouts of "scum," "dishonest" and "disgusting" reverberating as thousands of his supporters, many of them snickering at the spectacle, turn toward the press pen, booing. Some of us have even come to expect a call from the would-be-president every so often to hear the candidate gripe about a particular article and shame us as "dishonest."

But on Thursday night, Trump took his mistreatment of the press to new lows, taking the stage at a rally in New Hampshire moments before the traveling press corps' plane touched down in the state, and proceeding to mock us.

"I have really good news for you. I just heard that the press is stuck on their airplane. They can't get there. I love it," Trump said, to his supporters' glee.

We arrived for the last three minutes of his speech -- a circumstance caused by Trump's refusal to travel on the same plane as reporters covering his campaign, defying decades of precedent in the coverage of Democratic and Republican nominees.

The event on Friday was his coup-de-grace.

Having promised a "major statement," via Twitter, Trump talked up his hotel -- "under budget and ahead of schedule" -- and invited a parade of military veterans to come to the podium and tell the world why they were supporting Trump's presidential bid. The event was no longer about a Republican presidential nominee reversing his position on an issue supported by a fringe slice of America. It was about brave military men embracing this controversial figure, flaws and all.

All the while, the cameras continued to roll, the remarks carried live on cable news in anticipation that Trump would clarify his position on birtherism as he had promised that morning.

It's the kind of free, unfiltered media coverage that every politician dreams of, but few will ever grasp.

Finally, after 28 minutes, Trump lifted the suspense and got to the point. He falsely claimed that his opponent Hillary Clinton "started the birther controversy" in 2008 and stated, matter-of-factly, that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States" -- something Obama proved beyond a shadow of a doubt in 2011 when he released his long-form birth certificate.

He spent more time talking about his hotel than explaining how he was changing his position on the issue that skyrocketed him to national political prominence and earned him his earliest notes of support from the far-right.

It remains to be seen whether Trump's move helped him. CNN and Fox News cut away at points in the presentation. Networks spent the day talking about Trump's history as a birther.

The Trump campaign had also previously billed a March campaign event as a possible news conference, only for the candidate to not take any questions. The event, which had been scheduled earlier, came just days after his campaign manager was accused of grabbing a reporter.

As we filed into the event hall for his rally Friday night, we were still nowhere closer to understanding why Trump had suddenly flip-flopped on birtherism. The campaign had ignored all our requests for comment. We hadn't had an opportunity to prod Trump on the when and why of his sudden change of heart, especially when he had declined to disavow the position just days earlier.

But as we awaited the familiar sound of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," a more ominous tune played instead.

It was a song from Broadway's "Les Misrables," the words "Les Deplorables" flashing on the screen above the stage, harkening to Clinton's comment about his supporters from earlier this month.

I flicked at my iPhone, and powered on the video recorder.

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Donald Trump's surreal Friday, from press row ...

Clinton has accused Trump of being thin-skinned, feeding "prejudice and paranoia" and lacking any "real solutions."

Trump -- never one to dodge a fight -- has returned fire in recent weeks, calling Clinton "trigger-happy," a "bigot" and accusing her of running a "policy-free" campaign.

The Republican nominee has gotten plenty of attention for his trash-talking and bare-knuckle style. But he's also developed a sub-specialty: the boomerang insult.

Rather than running from the words his opponents hurl at him, Trump seizes them, shakes them up and turns them around. It's a strategy that muddies stark differences between Trump and his rivals, and helps neutralize political vulnerabilities.

Trump's GOP primary opponents also relentlessly pegged the brash billionaire with the same accusation as he sketched out, with little specificity, grandiose promises to rid America of all undocumented immigrants, send the economy roaring and force other countries to bend at the knee -- all while lowering the federal debt. And like with Clinton, Trump threw the attacks back.

"Hillary Clinton is running a policy-free campaign. She offers no ideas, no solutions and only hatred and derision," Trump said Tuesday during a rally in Clive, Iowa.

And on a call with reporters Tuesday morning previewing a new policy proposal, a Trump campaign official accused Clinton of "basically running a completely idea-free, issues-free campaign."

The attack is one Clinton has lobbed time and again at Trump.

"Donald Trump offers no real solutions for the economic challenges we face," Clinton said in June. "He just continues to spout reckless ideas that will run up our debt and cause another economic crash."

"Like a schoolyard bully who can't rely on facts or issues, Trump has only one way of responding to legitimate criticism of his own vulnerabilities: 'I know you are, but what am I?'" Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement to CNN. "You could dismiss these actions as insecure schoolyard behavior but this man is running to be President of the United States."

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Over the past few weeks, Trump and Clinton have exchanged a volley of attacks on everything from the "bigotry" of each other's candidacies to the other's temperament to serve as commander-in-chief.

Just a day after Clinton said in an interview that jihadists were praying, "Oh please Allah, make Trump president of America," the Republican nominee fired back at his rival with ricochet-like reflex.

"Oh boy would they (ISIS) dream of having her as president," Trump said Friday during a speech in Washington. "Can you imagine? They dream about it every night having Hillary Clinton."

While Clinton has pointed to Trump's vitriolic rhetoric and quickness to fire off insults whenever he feels slighted, he has offered little evidence to back up his boomerang attack.

This week, the real estate mogul repeatedly slammed Clinton as "trigger-happy" and "unstable" as the two sparred over national security and each other's fitness to be commander-in-chief -- returning a frequent attack of Clinton's.

"Do we want him making those calls -- someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism?" Clinton continued. "Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?"

One of Clinton's most persistent criticisms of Trump is his fitness to serve as commander in chief: that he lacks the "temperament" to be president.

"I have the best temperament," Trump has said repeatedly at rallies raising Clinton's attack. "She has bad temperament."

Trump, meanwhile, has returned the attack by pointing to Clinton's support for military interventions, including her vote for the Iraq War and her push for the US to intervene militarily in Libya -- both of which Trump publicly supported.

As Clinton prepared to deliver a speech eviscerating Trump for legitimizing white supremacists and cozying up to far-right extremists, Trump responded in kind.

"From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia," Clinton said last month in Reno, Nevada, slamming Trump for his "steady stream of bigotry."

Trump's retort came just hours after the Clinton campaign released snippets of the biting speech.

"Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future," Trump said during a speech in Jackson, Mississippi.

Clinton, a Democrat who has forged deep ties with African-American leaders over her decades on the national political scene, has the support of more than 90% of black Americans, according to the latest polls.

Trump's support with black voters is in the single-digits.

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Donald Trump and the art of the boomerang insult ...

Following the revelation that Hillary Clintons doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia, Donald Trump said Monday that he plans to release very, very specific numbers from a physical he had donelast week.

I feel great, but when the numbers come in, Ill be releasing very, very specific numbers, the GOP presidential nominee said in an interview on Fox NewsFox and Friends.

In a separate interview on CNBCs Squawk Box,Trump was asked if he was correct in his assessment that Clinton doesnt have the stamina mentally or physically to serve as president.

Well, I dont take satisfaction, Joe, and frankly, you know, I hope she gets well and I hope she gets well soon, but, you know, it was quite sad to be honest with you. And I hope she gets well soon. No satisfaction, believe me, whatsoever, Trump said.

Trump also said it was interesting that Clintons doctor said she diagnosed the Democratic presidential nominee with pneumonia on Friday even though Trump said Clinton was coughing very, very badly a week ago and even before that, if you remember.

Its interesting to see what is going on, he said. I want her to get better and I want her to get out there.

On Fox and Friends, Trump was asked if he has a plan to take on Tim Kaine or Joe Biden if Clinton is replaced.

No, I dont think theyll replace her. We have to see whats wrong, he said. But whatever it is, it is, Im ready. Whatever it is.

On Sunday, after Clinton was seen leaving the 9/11 memorial event at ground zero early and seen stumbling, Clintons campaign revealed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday by her doctor. Her campaign has since canceled a two-day fundraising trip to California that also included a speech on the economy.

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Donald Trump reacts to Hillary Clinton's pneumonia diagnosis