There's one thing you should know about President Donald Trump's new healthcare plan: it does not exist. It has never existed. Perhaps in some metaphysical sense it does exist, but only when you ponder the question: "Does a thought of something that does not exist actually exist?" That is the only realm in which Trump's magic healthcare plan might be said to have an existence; as a vague, ill-defined wish for a magic plan to cure all ills, both medical and political. Other than that, it exists precisely as much as the Emperor's new clothes exist, which is to say: "Not at all."

Not unlike those regal garments, though, Trump will soon demand that all his faithful sycophants praise his new yet-to-be-revealed healthcare plan to the skies as the best thing to come along since sliced bread. This is because his hand was forced at a recent town hall event by George Stephanopoulos, who asked Trump why he hadn't released his wondrous plan that he's been promising to the American public almost nonstop for the past four or five years. Stephanopoulos pointed out a few examples (among many) of Trump promising journalists that his healthcare plan was almost ready and would be announced within a matter of weeks -- only to have these deadlines repeatedly pass with no plan in sight. Trump was put on the spot, so he upped the ante. The magic new plan was not merely aspirational (a few weeks in the future), but actually existed right now. It was "all ready to go," Trump promised the country, and it would be better than anything George had seen in his entire lifetime. Since then, his aides have been echoing this rosy assessment of the plan (which does not, in fact, exist).
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President Donald Trump just made Joe Biden's debate preparation a whole lot easier. Appearing at an ABC town hall last night, Trump showed exactly what he's going to be like in the upcoming presidential debate. By so obviously telegraphing his moves and strategy, Trump essentially handed Team Biden a playbook for how Biden should debate him. And since Trump is reportedly not even doing real debate prep, the chances he will get better or even in any way different in the next two weeks are minimal.

The townhall last night was moderated by George Stephanopoulos, who apparently made the decision to just let Trump talk for as long as he wanted on most subjects. Very occasionally, Stephanopoulos would gently interject some facts and truth, but it was rare. Even when he did so, Stephanopoulos spoke in such low and quiet tones that Trump mostly just ignored him altogether.
This will likely not be the case in the presidential debate, for a number of reasons. The first is that Chris Wallace has a much more direct style, and will likely challenge both candidates with the facts in a forthright fashion. The second is that there will be time limits on the answers, meaning Trump won't get to just filibuster forever, as he repeatedly did last night. And the third is that Joe Biden will be free to interrupt at any time, which he should do whenever Trump drops a whopper of a lie (which he did last night about every 20 seconds or so).
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[Editor's Note: It helps if you read the following topic sentence in an internal "Cheech And Chong" sort of hippie accent.]

Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Michael Caputo is absolutely freaking out, man. The dude really needs to mellow out.

Think that's too retro-colloquial? Well, you be the judge....

Exhibit A in defense of my theme today is the following tidbit from a Politico article today on Caputo's perhaps-imminent departure from his job. He may quit, he may take a medical leave, nothing's certain at this point. But what was reported is that he's meeting with his boss (the secretary of H.H.S.) today, and Caputo convened a rather odd staff meeting before it:

[H.H.S. Asst. Sec. Michael] Caputo also disputed anonymous White House criticism about his mental health -- saying that some of his comments have been taken out of context -- and concluded the meeting by encouraging his staff to listen to music by the Grateful Dead.

To which we can only reply: Far out, man.

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It has been four whole weeks since we took a look at the presidential race at the state level, and much has happened in the meantime. Both parties held their national conventions, multiple new scandals have emerged for President Donald Trump, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have begun hitting the campaign trail in person.

The race has tightened somewhat in the polls, but not in any dramatic "post-convention bounce" fashion. There are three things at work here, really, and it's impossible to separate them out for each individual poll. The first is that the conventions happened and a whole bunch of people watched them. The ratings for the Democrats were noticeably higher than for the Republicans, for whatever that's worth. The second thing in play is the calendar, as we're now beyond Labor Day, which is when voters traditionally start paying more attention to the race.

But the third thing is more subtle, because as we approach the actual election, the pollsters all switch over from counting "all voters" or "registered voters" to a narrower focus on "likely voters." Who exactly is a "likely voter" is determined by each polling organization, but they use different metrics. Some use past voting behavior as a key (counting, for instance, only voters who report having voted in the past two elections), while others use voter enthusiasm as a yardstick (asking how likely it is that the voter will actually bother to vote, and then only counting those who report they are totally committed to doing so, for example).

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Another week, another stunning revelation about the dishonesty and shallowness of our president, it seems. Last week, you'll remember, it was the low regard Trump held ("suckers" and "losers") for American soldiers who died in wartime, American soldiers who were wounded ("nobody wants to see that"), and American soldiers and veterans in general. This week, Bob Woodward leaked a few key excerpts (backed up by audio recordings) from his upcoming book Rage, which showed that Trump understood how serious the coronavirus was going to be and then lied to the American public about it. There simply is no bottom, with Trump -- every time you think that he's reached the lowest of the low, he will once again prove that he can go even lower.

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We have a new contender for the biggest Trump lie yet. This is mostly due to its all-encompassing nature. Trump is lying not only about the issue of the day, but about his entire political career as a whole, as well.

The revelation from Bob Woodward's book that started all of this was that President Donald Trump knew how dangerous the COVID-19 pandemic would be and then flat-out lied to the American public, downplaying the issue all he could. Woodward has tapes of Trump, making the accusation impossible to deny.

This has left Trump and his defenders flat-footed, flailing around for a way to make the issue go away or even attempt to explain it in any way. Yesterday, Trump attempted to do so with an enormous whopper:

If you said "in order to reduce panic," perhaps that's so. I'm a cheerleader for this country. I don't want people to be frightened. I don't want to create panic.

Later, on Sean Hannity's show, Trump tried this line of reasoning again:

I'm the leader of the country, I can't be jumping up and down and scaring people. I don't want to scare people. I want people not to panic, and that's exactly what I did.

Got that? As the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy put it: "Don't panic!"

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It's now official: Trump lied, people died.

Bob Woodward is out with a new book, and today he released some excerpts -- with some tapes to back them up. The most damning revelation is that President Donald Trump knew full well -- in early February -- that COVID-19 was a very serious threat and much more dangerous than the flu. But that was in private conversation with Woodward. Publicly, Trump kept right on downplaying the threat for approximately the next five weeks. If America had moved more quickly during this period, tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive today. Quod Erat Demonstrandum: Trump lied, people died.

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October surprises are supposed to be, well... surprising. It's right there in the name, after all. This year, however, President Donald Trump has already unveiled what he hopes will be his ace-in-the-hole October surprise a few months early: a COVID-19 vaccine announcement, which will likely happen just before Election Day. When this happens, though, it will come as no surprise. Maybe we'll have to come up with a better name for it -- the "prescheduled October event," perhaps? The "October expected announcement"?

Never before has a president telegraphed what he wants to do to sway the election so far in advance. The whole "slow down the mail" plot was uncovered way too early, and announcing a vaccine in late October is not going to surprise anyone at all by the time it actually takes place. Because of all the anticipation, however, it is going to be far less effective than it might have been if it truly were a surprise. With the surprise factor near zero, voters will already have worked out how they feel about Trump announcing a vaccine long before it actually happens.

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I'm mostly taking today off, so this won't be a column about politics. It won't even be a full column, for that matter.

I'm taking the time off in order to get caught up on a few projects around the house, if truth be told. That's right -- I will be laboring on Labor Day. Now, I do realize that delving into the mysteries of under-sink plumbing and towel rack maintenance don't really qualify for the intended purpose of the holiday, so I decided to write this to comment about how important laborers are to the country right now.

It took a pandemic for many people to even notice how essential some jobs are. Who among us ever gave a single thought for the workers who produce toilet paper before this year? And yet suddenly they were at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus (mostly due to rampant panic-buying for no particular reason). The only times I've ever stood in a long line at 6:00 A.M. previously, it was to buy concert tickets when they went on sale. Doing so to get the limited number of toilet paper packages the grocery store released each day was indeed a novel experience, that's for sure.

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It has been three weeks since we've done this, since for the past two Fridays we were still writing up our notes on the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Now that all that hoopla is over, we can return once again to our usual Friday Talking Points format.

We're not even going to try to cover all three of those weeks today, since that would be a monumental task. So much happens so fast these days that it is almost impossible to keep up. And no, this is not just hyperbole -- while reading a little history of political haircuts (after Nancy Pelosi's now-infamous visit to a salon), we came across the following extraordinary reminder of the way things used to be in the political world:

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