The Note: Clinton’s Anti-Trump Offensive

— -- NOTABLES

--CLINTON JABS TRUMP FOR STAFF SHAKE-UP: Hillary Clinton took a shot at Donald Trump's new staff shake-up during a rally in Cleveland, Ohio yesterday, where she also made a joke about the Republican presidential nominee's teleprompter use and hit him for not releasing his tax returns: “For anyone waiting for Donald Trump to suddenly become more responsible: Remember what a great American, Maya Angelou said. 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them,'" Clinton told the crowd, ABC’s LIZ KREUTZ notes. "And I think it's fair to say that Donald Trump has shown us who he is. He can hire and fire anybody he wants from his campaign. They can make him read new words from a teleprompter, but he's still the same man who insults gold star families, demeans women, mocks people with disabilities and thinks he knows more about ISIS than our generals," she continued. "There is no new Donald Trump. This is it." http://abcn.ws/2bu6suf

--NEW CLINTON AD CALLS ON TRUMP TO RELEASE TAX RETURNS: The Clinton campaign is taking its call for Donald Trump to release his tax returns to the next level. Today, the Democratic presidential nominee has unveiled a new television ad accusing her opponent of flip-flopping on the issue, ABC’s LIZ KREUTZ reports. The 30-second spot, titled "Absolutely," opens with old footage of Trump saying if he ran for office he would "absolutely" release his tax returns -- something he has now yet to do. He and his campaign insisted that they cannot do so because he is under audit. http://abcn.ws/2bDM78P

--TRUMP CASTS DOUBT ON INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AS HE RECEIVES FIRST BRIEFING. Donald Trump received his first national security briefing in Lower Manhattan yesterday, but he cast doubt on the trustworthiness of some of the members of the intelligence community in an interview that aired last night. "Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. Look what's happened over the last 10 years. Look what's happened over the years. It's been catastrophic,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards, just use them, use them, use them. Very easy to use them. But I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions.” The meeting between Trump and intelligence officials lasted about two hours, according to ABC’s JOHN SANTUCCI. As first reported by ABC News Tuesday, Trump was joined at yesterday’s briefing at FBI Headquarters by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Retired Gen. Michael Flynn. http://abcn.ws/2bz4Z72

YESTERDAY ON THE TRAIL with VERONICA STRACQUALURSI and ABC’s ADAM KELSEY

KAINE TALKS ABOUT A SUBJECT CLINTON RARELY MENTIONS: BENGHAZI. While Hillary Clinton shies away from referencing Benghazi on the campaign trail, her running mate seems less hesitant to do so. For the second time in two days, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine brought up Wednesday the deadly 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya, referencing an incident that Republicans have tried to use to harm Clinton’s White House hopes. At rallies in both Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, Kaine has contrasted the way Clinton reacted to families of Benghazi victims speaking at the Republican National Convention last month with the way GOP nominee Donald Trump reacted to the family of fallen Army Capt. Humayun Khan speaking at the Democratic National Convention. ABC’s JESSICA HOPPER has more: http://abcn.ws/2bytaBD

MEET THE NEW CONSERVATIVE OPERATIVES RUNNING TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN. The two latest additions to Donald Trump's presidential campaign are well known in political circles and have close ties to the candidate. Steve Bannon, who has taken a leave of absence from his position as the executive chairman of conservative news site Breitbart News, was announced as the campaign's new CEO. Kellyanne Conway, a campaign strategist and pollster, has been named its new manager, ABC’s MEGHAN KENEALLY notes. While Bannon has been known for his role at Breitbart, his career extends beyond the web. Conway is the founder and president of the polling company inc./WomanTrend, a privately held company that analyzes market research and polling data. http://abcn.ws/2byJvaw

INSIDE TRUMP'S COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PRESS. One of Donald Trump's favorite targets throughout his campaign has been the media, and he has lobbed a flurry of insults at reporters, including repeatedly calling them "dishonest" as well as the "worst people." On the other hand, he has been the beneficiary of seemingly endless coverage from the time he descended an escalator at Trump Tower last year to announce his campaign, studies have shown. This week his distaste for the media appeared to reach a new level when he sent out a fundraising email calling for supporters to "help me fight back against the dishonest and totally biased media.” Experts like Thomas Patterson, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, say the time is ripe for anti-media discourse, given that the public's trust in the press has reached record lows in recent years. But is the rhetoric going to pay off for Trump at the voting booth? ABC’s MEGHAN KENEALLY has more.http://abcn.ws/2b1fnFi

TRUMP AIMS TO SHORE UP WHAT LITTLE BLACK SUPPORT HE HAS. Donald Trump made an unlikely appeal to African-American voters in his latest speech, weaving in his support for the community with a call for more police officers. His comments, delivered to a largely white audience in West Bend, Wisconsin, came on the heels of rioting in Milwaukee after the deadly shooting of a black man by a black police officer. The decision to give such a speech in West Bend, which is 94.8 percent white, has raised eyebrows, ABC’s MEGHAN KENEALLY writes. Trump’s appeal to black voters comes as his poll numbers in the demographic dropped after the July conventions, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, released Aug. 7. Before the conventions, Clinton received support from 89 percent of registered black voters who were polled about a two-way race; Trump got only 4 percent. http://abcn.ws/2biNTsv

WHAT HAS TO BE PROVED FOR PERJURY CHARGES AGAINST CLINTON. Two top Republicans sent a letter this week to the leading federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. laying out their case for perjury charges against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over false testimony she gave to Congress. The letter cites several inaccurate statements she made when testifying in October 2015 about her use of a private email server, and it notes that the FBI's own investigation appears "to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony." But is that enough to bring perjury charges? ABC’s MIKE LEVINE looks at what the law requires and how it affected two recent high-profile cases. http://abcn.ws/2b1cvW0

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE CLINTON INTERVIEW NOTES THE FBI GAVE TO CONGRESS. The FBI provided Congress with documents on Tuesday, related to the investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information over her private email server. Republican lawmakers pushed for the FBI to release any documents pertaining to the investigation, including notes on the former secretary of state’s three-and-a-half-hour interview with the agency last month. While the materials are currently classified, there are some Democrats and at least one Republican who want the documents to be made available to the public. ABC’s ARLETTE SAENZ notes some key facts about the documents the FBI handed over to Congress. http://abcn.ws/2aYWHpp

WHY 15 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER FOR THIRD-PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES GARY JOHNSON AND JILL STEIN. For third-party presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, who are looking to break through in an election where the major-party nominees suffer from low favorability numbers, the opportunity to make their case directly to voters in nationally televised debates can be a game changer. But before they can make it to the debate stage, they have to make it to a 15 percent average in selected national polls, and it’s not looking too good right now. So far, neither Libertarian candidate Johnson nor the Green Party’s Stein has hit the threshold in any one poll chosen by the commission, let alone on average. ABC’s JORDYN PHELPS and MARYALICE PARKS have more. http://abcn.ws/2b0yRXw

FROM POLLING TO PRODUCTION, HOW A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AD GETS MADE. Television watchers in four U.S. states will notice something a little bit different while watching the boob tube on Friday: advertisements for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Campaign officials have announced that they’ll begin airing television spots on Friday in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- the first such advertisements for Trump before the general election. While the announcement came just three days before the ads hit the air, political media strategists say that the process of creating these ads is often planned weeks in advance. It’s a process that varies from campaign to campaign, but let’s try to unravel the ball of yarn that is political advertising, ABC’s PAUL BLAKE looks at some of the key steps an ad takes on the way to your living room. http://abcn.ws/2b6iFFO

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

KAINE MEETS 'ABE LINCOLN' AT IOWA RALLY. For Tim Kaine, Iowa was more like the Land of Lincoln. The Democratic vice presidential nominee ran into a familiar figure at a Cedar Rapids campaign event day: Abraham Lincoln. Wearing a black suit and a replica of the sixteenth president’s iconic stovepipe hat with a Clinton-Kaine sticker on its side, Lincoln impersonator Lance Mack attended the rally, sitting in the audience for Kaine’s speech.  ABC’s JESSICA HOPPER has more. http://abcn.ws/2bDWPMy

WHO’S TWEETING?

@TexasTribAbby: Is Texas in play? Democrats are still really, really reluctant to go there, no matter what's going on with Trump. http://bit.ly/2bkTcHK

@maryaliceparks: Woah- In new poll from CO, for voters under 35 yrsold, a 4-way race: Clinton 34, Johnson 29, Trump 18, Stein 17. -- https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2373 …

@HarrellKirstein: "I’ve always voted Republican. Until now." -- former @GM CEO Daniel Akerson http://wapo.st/2bvwBIP

@MarkHalperin: .@WSJ ed board: "Breitbart has been called Mr Trump's Pravda, but Pravda is more subtle"

@realDonaldTrump: They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!