• Doubting Obama's Grades Donald Trump, who says he's always been cool with "the blacks," made a veiled affirmative action swipe against President Obama in an interview with the Associated Press' Beth Fouhy. "I heard [Obama] was a terrible student, terrible," Trump said. "How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump offered no proof of his claims, but said he was investigating the matter, presumably just as he's got investigators in Hawaii digging for Obama's already-publicly-released birth certificate.
• Everyone to Hawaii Speaking of which, Anderson Cooper is sending his own team to Hawaii to see what Trump's birther investigation unit is up to. Trump claims that someone (one of those "investigators," Time's James Pniewozik assumes) told him that Obama's birth certificate is missing. CNN has been dogged in its repeated debunking of the birther conspiracy, which would probably annoying for its reporters, if they didn't get a sweet trip to Hawaii in the process.
• Sincere in His Cynicism Trump displayed blind faith in the ability to buy off politicians later in the AP interview when he expressed incredulity that Sen. John McCain would say something mean about him. McCain--whose daughter is eager to work for Trump--implied the reality star was just trying to get publicity, saying, "I congratulate him for getting the attention he's getting," on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. Trump seemed shocked, telling Fouhy, "I would find it hard to believe he would say anything bad because I raised a fantastic amount of money for him."
• Ratings Up But hey, he's doing what works. The Apprentice brought in an average 8.1 million viewers from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday, a nice gain from the 7.7 million who tuned in a week earlier. That put the reality show in a tie with Desperate Housewives for the most-watched show among 18- to 49-year-olds. Neilsen's ratings indicate the show's audience increased by about 2 million viewers from the first half hour to the last, The New York Times' Benjamin Toff reports.
• Where Was Trump Born?  The birther maybe-candidate has offered his own birth certificate as proof of his eligibility to be president, but it didn't convince everybody: only 43 percent of Americans are sure Trump was born in America. That's not much better than Obama's numbers: just 38 percent are sure the president was born here, USA Today's Susan Page reports. 

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Elspeth Reeve