It’s August 12, 2016, 88 days before the election, and time once again for 20 Questions Friday.

This edition will have more than its share of Olympic and Olympic-watching queries. Because, besides coping with an August heat wave, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Answer these if you choose:

— Wasn’t the “just kidding” thing that Trump’s trying to pull off about claiming President Obama founded ISIS a routine he stole from Steve Martin? Should Steve Martin sue him for plagiarism?

— Isn’t it more surprising that it took Hostess this long to come up with the home version of Deep Fried Twinkies?

— This one is inspired by my daughter: If these Olympic archers are the best in the world, why do they make so few bull’s-eyes?

— Will Trump show up at the debates?

— Why does NBC Olympics’ coverage use so many announcers with British accents?

— Is there any chance that, after tonight’s Yankee game, we never have to hear about A-Rod ever again?

— What is your favorite thing to drink in really hot weather?

— Is there something wrong with people who drink hot beverages on 105° heat index days?

— Will Simone Manuel’s thrilling Olympic win in the 100-meter freestyle encourage other African-American girls to hit the pool?

— Do female and male beach volleyball players’ skimpy outfits obscure the fact that these people are tremendous athletes in a tough sport?

— Isn’t it curious that countries with strict gun control laws, such as Germany and South Korea, are doing better in the Olympic shooting events than the United States?

— How come there’s no Olympic shooting event involving that renowned sporting weapon, the AR-15?

— Does anyone else have trouble with newer quarters not being accepted in vending machines?

— I agree that I’d rather see original movie projects over reworked remakes. But doesn’t an “Ocean’s Eight” with such terrific actors as Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham-Carter and Sandra Bullock, among others, make you a little curious?

— Speaking of movies, are you looking forward to “Southside With You,” the movie about Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date?

— Does anybody buy the Halloween stuff that’s already in stores on a 100-degree heat index day in August?

— Do you really want your kids to have Halloween candy that someone bought today?

— What are the odds that Trump will see that Hillary Clinton isn’t taking any flak from releasing her latest tax return and say, hey, that’s not so awful. I can do that?

— Is there a campaign somewhere in the Citi Field vicinity to make the Mets great again?

— Is it me, or is there something incestuous about the McDonald’s commercial with the girl who gets the Chicken McNuggets from a wide-eyed boy that turns out to be her father?

1. It’s Thursday, August 11, 2016. It’s 89 days until the election.

2. I’m not feeling guilty about watching so much of the Olympics because 10 days from now they’ll be over.

All right, a little guilty.

3. She must be soul crushing to other nations. So I’m glad Katie Ledecky is on our side. Imagine if she were a force for evil. Or Russia.

4. When the U.S. men’s basketball team started using NBA pros in 1992, creating the Dream Team, some complained that it was like using a nuclear weapon on the rest of the sport.

But just 12 years later in Athens, the U.S. men couldn’t even make it to the finals, settling for the bronze.

The team hasn’t lost since then, and maybe with Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and other all-stars, it shouldn’t. But yesterday, the men got a severe test from the Australians, holding them off in the final minutes. The 10-point win belied how close the U.S. came to losing.

And that’s great.

I’ve always believed the point of the Dream Team wasn’t to exercise American dominance. It was to make the rest of the world aspire to play better. Before the Olympics let NBA pros in, the U.S. was sending teams of college players, and they were mostly good enough.

But starting with Jordan, Bird and Magic Johnson and now to the current incarnation, the rest of the world knows it needs to play its best to compete. Some countries can’t. But Australia proved yesterday that it could stay with the Americans, putting out a bunch of current and former NBAers on their own.

The two countries might meet again in the finals. I wouldn’t write the Australians off.

5. Macy’s announced this morning that it will close 100 of its 675 full-line stores early next year. It also said it’s looking into doing something with four big downtown flagship store.

There was no specificity about which stores are involved, with the people who work in these stores getting the cold comfort that they’ll know before everyone else does.

I would think the safest Macy’s location would be the one in New York’s Herald Square. It’s what gives the company its identity – the focal point of the Thanksgiving Day parade and the plot of “Miracle on 34th Street.”

But when was the last time you wanted to buy something and thought, “Hey, I’ll go to Macy’s for that?”

The experience of shopping in a full-line department store in 2016 doesn’t, with precious few exceptions, engender warm feelings. The merchandise isn’t better than that of a chain store elsewhere in a mall. And if you think you know what you want, and are dealing with insomnia, you can order online at 2:27 a.m. and ship the stuff back if it’s not just right.

And these stores are getting squeezed at both ends of the human timeline.

On the one hand, do young people ever talk about going to Macy’s to shop when there’s something trendier and friendlier elsewhere in the mall?

On the other hand, older people begin to ask how much of their remaining life do they want to waste waiting for an overmatched sales person to either show up at the register or figure out how the byzantine formula for this week’s discounts work.

There’s one other problem as I see it.

Department stores used to be special places. Almost magical.

One that comes to mind is Marshall Field’s at the dead center of Chicago, State and Washington. The famous clock at the corner. One of the coolest parts was the working candy factory that produced the store’s signature Frango mints. The store was, like Macy’s in Herald Square, a symbol of the city it served.

Alas, Macy’s took over Marshall Field’s in the mid-2000s and made the dumb decision to rename all of the Field’s stores, including the iconic flagship, Macy’s. It reeked of big-footing from New York – or Cincinnati, both of which are headquarters for the company’s corporate parent.

Doing that in Chicago, in Washington and in other cities took away the special sensation of going to the Big Store in Town. If there’s nothing particularly special inside the store, and nothing particularly special about the store, why should anyone go to the store?

Maybe Macy’s will figure it out. Maybe closing these 100 stores and repurposing those unspecified four locations will make shopping there an experience again.

I wouldn’t count on it. Retailers, and not just Macy’s, need to start using their imaginations to figure out how to make themselves relevant in a digital world. Just closing stores won’t cut it.

1. It’s Wednesday, August 10, 2016.

2. Neither Katie Ledecky nor Michael Phelps are old enough to be elected President.

Phelps can run in 2020, but Ledecky has to wait until 2032.

It’s too bad. Because, if people could vote in 2016, either one would win in the watery equivalent of a landslide.

Over the past few nights in Rio, both swimmers have thrilled their fellow Americans with gritty performances. Both have done it with the pressure that comes with outsized expectations.

Ledecky has demonstrated the demeanor you would expect from a President of the United States. Calm. Determined. Measured.

About the only unpresidential thing she’s said was admitting that she was trying so hard in last night’s 200-meter freestyle that she almost threw up in the pool. For which those of us with high def TVs are grateful.

Phelps had a different course to the 200-meter butterfly gold. But his stare down of South African Chad le Clos, who seemed to be taunting him in the wait until the race’s semifinal, is part of a being a president too. All that mattered was beating le Clos, which he did, avenging the 2012 defeat in London.

Both Ledecky and Phelps have other races to swim. But they’ll come back from OIympics as heroes – as will Simone Biles and the other female gymnasts.

The Constitution says you have to be 35 to be President. Given the nature of the 2016 campaign, don’t be surprised if some of these Olympians get write-in votes in November.

3. OK, there’s no getting around Trump and yesterday’s comments.

“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said. “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

That’s what he said. Watch the tape. That’s what he said.

Was it a joke, as House Speaker Paul Ryan suggests? Was it innocuous, as Trump’s sycophants claim, or an ineloquent way of mobilizing voters?

Or was Trump hinting that his friends who believe America should be armed to the teeth might do something about Hillary Clinton’s judicial selections using their beloved tools?

It’s rich that a guy who said at a rally last December “I know words. I have the best words” now needs people to explain the words he uses.

It makes you wonder how he got through Penn, an Ivy League school. Every other Quaker I’ve met or worked with was pretty articulate. Did they not have classes in which the student had to speak and make a point when Trump was waltzing through Wharton?

And then, keep in mind, this is a guy who has been a reality TV show star. So he knows that when he opens his mouth he needs to make what he says clear to the listener.

If he doesn’t, if a good percentage of the people who heard what you said believe you said X, and you think you said Y, there’s a good chance you really said X.

Now Trump could try to walk it back. He seemed to be doing that last night, with his tame Fox puppy Sean Hannity leading the way.

But an awful lot of people think Trump was advocating or condoning the assassination of Hillary Clinton. Given all the other crap spewed from his mouth since last summer, it just seems like the next step in a progression – unless he offers a full-throated apology to Clinton and the American people.

I would not bet money on that happening.

What’s next? Advocating insurrection? If “Second Amendment people” kill enough Clinton supporters, can they win the election for Trump?

We have 90 days to go. It’s hard for Trump to sink much lower. But, using the best words, it looks like he’ll give it a try.

1. It’s Tuesday, August 9, 2016. It’s 91 days until the election.

2. The Olympics offer a change of pace in the dog days of summer.

Your baseball team isn’t performing up to snuff. It’s too hot to think about football. The thrashing of Trump is a long 13 weeks away.

So you get to watch these crazy – and some not-so-crazy – sports with 200-plus different countries participating. It’s in Rio, so there’s going to be some Brazilian flair, and a great soundtrack.

But tell the truth: Before this week, you hadn’t watched anyone swim a race in four years. And after this week, you won’t watch anyone swim a race again until 2020.

Swimming. Gymnastics. Volleyball. Water polo. Even table tennis. All of this stuff is a novelty to watch in a summer of reruns and Trump-induced fear.

But I guarantee that about 10 days from now, you and all the viewers will have had their fill of these sports. All the stuff you’ve learned about it might or might not be forgotten by the time they open the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo.

3. I spent a disproportionate amount of yesterday watching women’s rugby.

My 83-year-old mother, who I was visiting, wondered why we were watching this. I told her that it was for the same reason you watch a car wreck – you can’t take your eyes off it.

I’m sure there’s someone in a rugby-playing nation who understands everything that happens in a rugby match. Who will tell me that it’s not roller derby on grass. That the young women who have parts of their faces rearranged can have them restored.

The Australian women won the gold medal. They clearly beat New Zealand in the final. I wondered, however, if there had been a tie whether the medal would be decided by which team had the most broken bones.

1. It’s Monday, August 8, 2016. It’s 92 days until the election.

2. This is the first Olympics since 1996 when I’ve been able to watch without having to worry about getting up for work the next morning. Nice!

What has been cool about these games is the availability of events live online. It allows people to not only watch what they know in real time, but to watch events they never see. I’ve watched more table tennis in the last 48 hours than I’ve played in the last 48 years.

It’s also been great to watch the swimming events live the past two nights, whether or not the Americans have won.

That’s due largely to the fact that Rio is only an hour ahead of Eastern Time; if these games had taken place in Europe or Asia, NBC would have subjected its primetime viewers to taped packages. As it was, all the women’s gymnastics aired last night was taped and repackaged.

3. One of the better things about the Olympics is that it offers the possibility, for its two weeks, of distracting Americans from the presidential election.

Now, I’m not an advocate for disengagement. I think this election is the most consequential in my lifetime, and I definitely have a strong stance on who (Hillary Clinton!) should win.

But we’ve been going at this election for more than a year; my Facebook feed reminded me that Saturday was the anniversary of that first Fox GOP debate. It’s been relentless – has Trump taken more than a day away from tweeting stupidity yet?

So a little break wouldn’t hurt. Not sure that Trump can let that much time slide without saying something totally ridiculous. But we’ll see.

4. Does the Olympics impact the election? I’m not sure.

I don’t think any American consciously says “Hey, the U.S. did great, I’m voting for the incumbent party” or “Hey, we didn’t win as many medals as we thought we would, it’s time for a change.”

But I do think the U.S. showing contributes to the nation’s psychology as it approaches Election Day, three months from today.

Would Ronald Reagan have swept to re-election in 1984 without the Los Angeles Olympics that summer? Of course. But having a great American showing, aided by the Soviet boycott and the fact that it was on his home turf, can put folks in a positive frame of mind.

By contrast, we boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. So there were no American heroes that summer. That negative was in the air as Jimmy Carter sought re-election against Reagan. Did it hurt?

Again, I don’t think it’s one of those measurable things. No one is going to answer a poll question saying I didn’t vote for Carter because the U.S. didn’t win any gold medals this year.

But seeing young Americans standing at the top of the medals platform for the national anthem makes normal people happy.

Now happy isn’t part of the Trump game plan. Remember that he wants to make American great again. How can it be great again when there are American flags celebrating Olympic victories in Rio already?

How can he say we don’t win at anything anymore if there’s someone standing there with a gold medal draped around his or her neck after, um, winning.

I’m not saying Trump doesn’t want U.S. athletes to win. It would be Trumpian of me to do so.

But I can’t help but think that American Olympic victories can affect people who are undecided about the direction the country is headed. Yet one more reason to shout “Go U.S.A.”

It’s August 5, 2016, 95 days until the election, and time for 20 Questions Friday.

I’m just going to lay these out there. Some might be gold. Some might be silver. Some might be bronze. Some might not finish.

Here goes:

— Who would replace Trump if he drops out of the race?

— If Trump dropped out, wouldn’t that render the year-plus of the Republican presidential campaign a complete waste of time and money?

— Can Hillary Clinton really win Georgia?

— Will the Rio Olympics distract Americans from the presidential campaign?

— If Democrats were really cooking the books, wouldn’t the jobs numbers that came out today seemed a lot better if they came out Nov. 4?

— Does anyone eat Maypo anymore?

— If you’re a lifelong Republican and old enough, which period was worse: the Watergate scandal years or Trump as your party’s standard bearer?

— Is it me, or is there just not the interest in the Olympics that there used to be?

— Can you imagine how different this summer would have been if Chicago had hosted the Olympics instead of Rio?

— I’m a big fan, but doesn’t it seem a little early for President Obama to be doing a lot of valedictory interviews, since he still has five and a-half months to go?

— Or does it seem like he’s doing a lot of valedictory stuff because we don’t want him to leave?

— What percentage of American offices observe summer Fridays?

— Does it make Mets fans wary that 43-year-old Bartolo Colon, signed to hold down the fort while we waited for Zach Wheeler, looks like our team’s 2016 ace?

— Are you, like me, on the Pokemon Go bench until your cellphone data plan resets?

— Are you old enough to be incredulous at the thought that $2-a-gallon gas is considered cheap?

— Do you think the best way to deal with the sports doping problem is to legalize sports doping?

— What’s your favorite song on “Revolver,” the Beatles’ album released 50 years ago? (For me, it’s no contest: “Got to Get You Into My Life.”)

— Have you had a perfect ear of corn this season?

— Have you started buying back-to-school stuff for your kids?

— If you were a third-time Olympian who won a gold and silver previously, would you want another gold or would you want a bronze to complete the set?

1. It’s Thursday, August 4, 2016. It’s 96 days until the election.

2. There’s reason to cheer the result of a Kansas Republican primary.

A three-term Congressman who has been part of the shut-the-government-down faction of the party was soundly defeated. His opponent, while railing about unnecessary spending, also campaigned on the idea that you can’t be against everything and expect government to function.

In particular, the people of the district that covers the western half of Kansas want help for the farms that a lot of them tend. It’s a simple, understandable idea, much as I want my congresswoman to look out for my interests in gun control, infrastructure rebuilding and education.

There’s little chance a Democrat will win this district; it’s only happened once in more than 140 years. But to the extent that the people of western Kansas will no longer be represented by someone who thinks government is always the enemy is a step in the right direction. 

3. The best thing I’ve read in the past 24 hours is a blog post by my friend and former colleague, Cara Reedy.

On her Infamously Short blog, she describes a subway ride from Hell. She shared a seat with a man who was slurring her the entire time – who was so abusive that she feared she wouldn’t be able to get off the train because he was seated in a way that blocked her egress.

It’s a story that gives any sane person the creeps. That’s due largely to Cara’s talent as a writer, but also to the fact that it’s hard to believe such people as her demon seatmate exist.

The tendency is to dismiss someone like this as mentally unbalanced, which is an illness which he’s likely not to have a lot of control over. That’s countered by the fact that he rides the New York subway system unaccompanied by a mental health worker or family member who can calm his obsessive hatetalk.

But there’s another possibility.

4. The worst thing I’ve seen online in the past 24 hours is a video posted on The New York Times site.

It is a compilation of scenes from Trump campaign rallies this year. Warning: Watch this on an empty stomach. 

It is horrifying. It is raw, unadulterated hate. It comes from the mouths of people who claim to be American patriots.

They are not. They do more to hurt this country than any ayatollah in Iran or communist apparatchik in China has ever done.

African-Americans, Latin American immigrants, women (mainly in the form of Hillary Clinton) and Muslims are the main targets of their venom. Given the chance, it’s easy to imagine the other bogeymen of the ignorant – Jews, Asians and LGBTs – getting the same treatment.

And here’s the thing: Trump is the motor vehicle bureau of intolerance. He gives his supporters a license to hate. The only test they have to pass is unfettered allegiance to him. He’ll supply the fuel with his rants about what’s wrong with this country, in code so that he and his sycophants can deny they meant to slander anyone.

Because he’s a “successful” businessman, these people believe there’s an air of respectability that give them the ability to go out and spread the crap that they may have harbored for years.

Which brings me back to Cara’s tormenter. Is he merely mentally ill? Or is he an echo of the hatred that Trump has now given him and others permission to spread?

If you’re a white person, you’ve heard people mouth this stuff for as long as you can remember. There’s almost a pathological need to blame someone else for your troubles. They believe they get special breaks. They believe they demand special treatment.

They stew as individuals – people who include President Obama and Hillary Clinton – succeed as you don’t, and you think there must be something sinister or crooked about it. They weren’t really born here. They conspire with who knows who to keep you down.

All this garbage is out in the open in 2016. Maybe we should give Trump some credit – he has unveiled America’s ugly secret of almost subliminally spoken hatred.

It’s why Hillary Clinton can’t just win. She has to crush Trump, and make it clear that if you want to harbor unfettered, unreasonable hatred, you have to keep it to yourself. The only harm should be self-inflicted.

In that way, we can look at the guy on the train with Cara as the mentally ill person he is. He won’t be another member of society given a license to hate.

1. It’s Wednesday, August 3, 2016. It’s 97 days until the election.

2. Until The Wall Street Journal weighed in on it yesterday, I had no idea anyone had a problem with men wearing cargo shorts. 

I’ve been retired from CNN for two years now. And I can say, without embarrassment, that I’ve worn cargo shorts on 90% of the days between Memorial Day and Labor Day in both years. Not to mention the one warm day I got to wear them this February at Walt Disney World.

Here’s why I like them. I’m always carrying stuff. Especially electronics. When I go to a Mets game, there’s an iPad to keep score, a iPhone to communicate, a portable charger and the cord to connect it. There’s also my keys, my wallet and sunscreen.

Cargo shorts allow me to carry all except the iPad. Because they have secure pockets, I don’t lose anything – except when I forget to take the stuff out when I do laundry. That’s a different problem.

Cargo shorts are comfortable and practical. They don’t look any less stupid than anything else I would wear. I’m not wearing a tux to Red Robin.

I know this presidential campaign has been trying people’s nerves. And they want something – anything – else to talk about.

Even so, men wearing cargo shorts seems like a stretch. Which, by the way, is the only way cargo shorts could be better.

3. Does it occur to Donald Trump that a two-week vacation is the best thing he could do right now?

Not that I’m trying to help him out or anything. I’m on record as wishing we could add 10 states to the union before November so he could lose them and the other 50 plus Washington, D.C.

But it seems his obsessive need to have his name out there is spinning out of control. Chuck Todd and Carrie Dann of NBC News have a list of 15 Trump campaign disasters that took place yesterday alone. And now you’re seeing columns hinting that Republicans are looking for a solution to the idea that Trump might drop out of the race. 

So when things are going bad, you need to change them up. Going on vacation would do that.

And if Trump is to be believed – of course, he makes that harder by not releasing his tax returns – he has properties where he could just take it easy for a few weeks and not have to say anything.

We’ve gotten so used to Trump-filled news days that we’ve forgotten what it’s like not having him in the daily cycle. Yes, we’d still have the Zika virus and Syria and other real problems. In fact, we’d be able to focus on them without the daily distraction of Trump.

For a few days, we wouldn’t have the noise and hand-wringing and eye-rolling and the nagging worry that there’s some freakish way that this ignoramus could become president.

And he’d get a few days to get a real tan and save some of that whatever-he-puts-on-himself-to-make-him-look-like-THAT for the final stretch.

Otherwise, he’s just going to keep spinning out of control. And the election won’t get here fast enough.

So take a couple of weeks, Trump. Watch the Rio Olympics. Bring a knife and fork so you can have some pizza, fried chicken or a hamburger.

Just give yourself – and us – a little break.

1. It’s Tuesday, August 2, 2016. It’s 98 days until the election.

2. Here’s what a politician who knew what he was doing would have done: After Khizr Khan gave his impassioned speech at the Democratic National Convention, Trump would have either said nothing or that he’s sorry for Khan’s loss.

The story would have been one for Thursday night, when Khan gave his speech, and maybe Friday. By Saturday, we would have been on to something else.

No. Trump decided he had to strike back at a family for whom there’s an automatically powerful sympathy.

Thus, the lead story on The New York Times site halfway into the sixth day of this is about Trump’s five deferments from serving in the military during the Vietnam era.

The lead story on The Washington Post site is about how strategists believe Trump went to far with Khan and his wife.

The lead story on The Los Angeles Times site is a profile of the Khans.

The “Trump-Kahn feud” tops the News section of the USA Today site.

The point is that this whole flap would have been relegated to memory if Trump understood politics.

But he brags that he doesn’t. And as polls show Hillary Clinton continuing to surge after last week’s convention, that gain is being conflated with and accelerated by Trump getting into it with the parents of a slain soldier.

What a dope!

3. Yesterday, I wrote about prominent Republican defections from the party’s presidential nominee.

In retrospect, I should have realized that it won’t be the big names that make the headlines right away.

The big news this morning is that Rep. Richard Hanna, a Republican from upstate New York, became the first sitting Congressman to switch sides in this election. He says he’ll vote for Clinton, calling Trump “a national embarrassment.”

Now Hanna is a little more moderate than your typical Republican. He faced a primary challenger in 2014 due to his support of same-sex marriage. 

Before him, one of Jeb Bush’s top aides, Sally Bradshaw, said she’s leaving the Republican Party and that she’ll vote for Clinton if Florida is close. 

No, it ain’t Jeb or his ex-president relatives, or any other particularly well-known Republican.

But the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In this case, let’s see who else crosses into the light over the next 14 weeks.

1. It’s Monday, August 1, 2016.

2. Uh oh. Summer is near the halfway point. And, yes, I’m the wistful, half-empty type – or, in this case, half-over.

3. As gloomy as I get about summer speeding by, there are good reasons to fast forward to Nov. 9. That’s when, hopefully, this miserable election will be over and Trump will be sent sulking to his gold-plated lair on Fifth Avenue.

Or, I could go back to pessimist mode and hope Nov. 9 never gets here if there’s any chance in the world that this, as described by conservative foreign policy adviser Max Boot in the Times, “unapologetic ignoramus wins the presidency.” 

4. Sure, there’s a certain pleasure in watching conservatives wring their hands about Trump as he embarrasses the Republican Party.

But real liberals value patriotism over partisanship. We want to find a way for the remaining sane Republicans to help stop Trump.

As of now, only a few Republicans of prominence have endorsed Hillary Clinton. These are mostly the foreign policy professionals such as former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

The question is whether any of the prominent Republicans who have refused to endorse Trump would actually say out loud they’ll vote for a Democrat they’ve vilified for more than two decades.

I don’t think Mitt Romney will. He’ll support Libertarian Gary Johnson before Clinton.

And I don’t John Kasich will. To paraphrase an old song, he wants to be around to pick up the pieces when Trump breaks Republicans’ hearts by losing. Although the fact that the governor of Ohio, one of the most important states in this election, can’t bring himself to back the GOP candidate in a close race might be helpful enough to Clinton.

Will any member of the Bush family, for more than 20 years the first family of the party, endorse a Democrat for president? A sentence that would have made no sense a year ago now can’t be completely dismissed.

I think there are others. Moderate governors such as Hogan in Maryland and Baker in Massachusetts might do it. Maybe Susana Martinez in New Mexico.

So how do Democrats get sensible Republicans to come around?

I think we just let our best recruiter do the job. That would be Trump himself.

Every time he opens his mouth. Every time he presses that blue Tweet button.

He’ll be the one to drive Republicans who haven’t lost their minds to do something they couldn’t have possibly imagined when this campaign began. They might shed a tear. But that will be the first step toward getting their party on a path toward humanity.

5. ISIS is doomed, its territory dwindling rapidly. But its best recruiter was still hard at work this weekend.

Nobody, but nobody, helps terrorists more than Trump.

He proved his worth to his ISIS masters this weekend with his sniping campaign against the Khan family, whose son was killed in Iraq a decade ago. Trump doubled down on his criticism of Khan, whose speech at the Democratic convention condemning Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric has been the talk of the nation for four days. 

So far, Trump has implied that Khan’s wife, Ghazala, was muzzled for religious reasons because she didn’t speak when her husband did at the convention. He implied that Khan has no right to criticize him, and challenged Khan’s statement that he has not sacrificed for the country, citing his building prowess.

The latest from the Trump team has been an attempt to slur the Khan’s son by insinuating that he had ties to terrorists.

Prominent Republicans have joined with Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine in condemning the Trump reaction. Sen. John McCain, who has been insulted by Trump himself, issued a strongly worded statement this morning. Although, for some strange reason, McCain refuses to withdraw his endorsement of a man who seems less bothered by Trump’s comments about him than just about every Democrat.

Trump gave ISIS an opportunity to insult the Khans with a statement calling their son an “apostate” for helping protect his men when the car bomb that killed him exploded, according to The Daily Beast and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

All Trump’s anti-Islamic rhetoric does is drive the confused into the camp of evil. If you’re a troubled teen whose faith is being demonized, and you see how honorable people are being treated by a presidential candidate, that seems more conducive to going to Syria to fight for ISIS than going downtown to an Armed Forces recruiting station.

I wonder if ISIS will give Trump a plaque as Recruiter of the Month. It would go with the others he’s earned in a year of campaigning.