Wilmington, North Carolina

Trump’s “incitement”: Donald Trump sparked fury this week by appearing to suggest that his supporters could stop his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by exercising their gun rights. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” he told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know,” he continued. The remark, referring to the constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms, was interpreted by critics as a dangerous incitement to violence, but the Republican presidential nominee later insisted that he had merely meant that gun rights activists could help muster support against Clinton.

Until the rally, Trump had appeared to be heeding advice to avoid controversy after a calamitous fortnight for his campaign ( see page 15). He gave a sober speech in Detroit on Monday laying out his economic proposals. On the same day, 50 of the US’S most senior Republican national security officials published an open letter declaring that Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president, and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being”. It followed a warning from a former deputy head of the CIA that Trump had already damaged US security. “In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr Putin had recruited Mr Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation,” claimed Michael Morell. Another former CIA officer, Evan Mcmullin, announced he was running for president as an independent conservative alternative to Trump.