WHAT TRUMP WILL PROBABLY BE RAGING ABOUT … WSJ ED BOARD: "If Mr. Trump is going to stage a comeback, and not become only the fourth incumbent in a century to be denied a second term, he will have to make the race about policy differences and Mr. Biden's indulgence to the Democratic left. … "If the race comes down to a character contest, Mr. Trump will lose. … Mr. Trump's job approval rating rests at about 43%-44%, and his personal approval is lower. He hasn't been able to sustain his job approval above what it was on Inauguration Day. Unlike Richard Nixon or George W. Bush, who won with pluralities the first time but majorities the next, Mr. Trump has failed to expand his coalition. … "Mr. Trump has narrowed his deficit somewhat since the GOP convention, but he trails Mr. Biden in the polling averages in every battleground state. It seems unlikely Mr. Trump can win the nationwide popular vote, so he will have to eke out another victory in the Electoral College. "After the surprises of 2016, only a fool would say this can't be done. But if Mr. Trump is going to do it, he will have to make the election about more than himself, or even his first-term record. He has to make the election a choice about two futures, rather than two men." MEDICAL TALKER … NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE: "Facial Masking for Covid-19 — Potential for 'Variolation' as We Await a Vaccine": "As SARS-CoV-2 continues its global spread, it's possible that one of the pillars of Covid-19 pandemic control — universal facial masking — might help reduce the severity of disease and ensure that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic. If this hypothesis is borne out, universal masking could become a form of 'variolation' that would generate immunity and thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere, as we await a vaccine." UH-OH -- "AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine study paused after one illness," by AP's Lauren Neergard JUST IN TIME … NIH Director FRANCIS COLLINS and Surgeon General JEROME ADAMS will be in front of Senate HELP at 10 a.m. to testify in a hearing entitled: "Vaccines: Saving Lives, Ensuring Confidence, and Protecting Public Health." DRIVING TODAY FOR DEMOCRATS: JOE BIDEN will be in Warren, Mich., and he'll talk about "The Biden-Harris Plan to Fight for Workers by Delivering on Buy America and Make It in America." Hill denizens will remember "Make it in America" from House Majority Leader STENY HOYER, who has used the phrase for what seems like a century. The plan DETROIT NEWS: "The event is not open to the public. … Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 12 percentage points in Macomb County in 2016 on his way to a 10,704-vote statewide victory. It was Trump's smallest margin of victory nationally as he became the first GOP presidential nominee to carry Michigan since 1988. … Biden last visited Michigan for the state's March 10 Democratic presidential primary, holding a campaign rally the prior night at Detroit Renaissance High School." SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) has a virtual fundraiser. NBC NEWS/MARIST POLL: "Biden leads by 9 in Pennsylvania" TOP-ED: BEN GINSBERG, for decades the GOP's premier election lawyer, in WAPO: "Republicans have insufficient evidence to call elections 'rigged' and 'fraudulent'": "Legions of Republican lawyers have searched in vain over four decades for fraudulent double voting. At long last, they have a blatant example of a major politician urging his supporters to illegally vote twice. The only hitch is that the candidate is President Trump. "The president, who has been arguing that our elections are 'rigged' and 'fraudulent,' last week instructed voters to act in a way that would fulfill that prophecy. On Wednesday in North Carolina, he urged supporters to double vote, casting ballots at the polls even if they have already mailed in absentee ballots. A tweet claiming he meant only for people to check that their ballots had been received and counted sounded fine -- until Trump renewed his original push on Thursday evening in Pennsylvania and again Friday at a telerally. "The president's actions -- urging his followers to commit an illegal act and seeking to undermine confidence in the credibility of election results -- are doubly wrong. They impose an obligation on his campaign and the Republican Party to reevaluate their position in the more than 40 voting cases they're involved in around the country." THE TAXPAYERS AS A LEGAL DEFENSE FUND … BLOOMBERG: "U.S. Seeks to Defend Trump in Rape Accuser's Defamation Suit," by Bob Van Voris and Erik Larson: "The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to take over the defense of President Donald Trump in a defamation suit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who claims Trump raped her two decades ago. "The move could further delay a suit in which Carroll is demanding potentially damaging evidence from Trump during the final weeks before the presidential election, including a deposition and a DNA sample to compare to a dress she claims she was wearing at the time of the alleged attack. It could also leave taxpayers on the hook for any damages awarded in the case." -- WAPO'S MATT ZAPOTOSKY: "It also means that Justice Department lawyers will be essentially aiding Trump's defense, and taxpayers could be on the hook for any potential damages, if the U.S. government is allowed to stand in for Trump. Winning damages against the government, though, would be more unlikely than in a suit against Trump, as the notion of 'sovereign immunity' gives the government and its employees broad protection from lawsuits." LEDE OF THE DAY … NYT'S ANNIE KARNI and LISA FRIEDMAN: "President Trump, who has vowed to exit the Paris Agreement on climate change, loosened restrictions on toxic air pollution, rolled back clean water protections and removed climate change from a list of national security threats, stood in front of supporters in Jupiter, Fla., on Tuesday and declared himself 'a great environmentalist.'" LOOK AHEAD … RATIONAL 360'S BRIAN BARTLETT has this new analysis out for its clients: "Identifying the Potential Tipping Points: Top Senate Targets for Businesses to be Prepared to Influence under a Biden Presidency, a Democratic-Majority Senate, and Elimination of the Filibuster for Legislation" -- it breaks down likely swing votes in a Dem majority government. The two-page PDF ALMOST NONE OF THIS WILL HAPPEN, BUT IT'S WORTH A READ ANYWAY … Sen. BEN SASSE (R-Neb.) in the WSJ: "Make the Senate Great Again: To restore the world's greatest deliberative body, we need to think big." NEW: ANNA spoke with ERIN HILL, executive director of ACTBLUE, the Democratic fundraising juggernaut, in the latest Women Rule podcast. They discussed everything from how BIDEN is faring in the fundraising landscape to how Republicans' effort to build out a digital money operation stacks up. Listen and subscribe ABOUT LAST NIGHT -- "Trump's ever-expanding claims of Biden's destructive potential," by Tina Nguyen in Jupiter, Fla.: "President Donald Trump is adding to his list of items that the 'radical left' will 'destroy' if Joe Biden wins the election. Trump has claimed, at various points, that Biden's ascension to the White House would ruin everything from 'jobs' to 'the Second Amendment' to 'God' to the 'middle class,' offering scant evidence. More recently, he vowed Biden would 'ABOLISH Suburban Communities.' And on Tuesday, he added a new item to his ever-expanding inventory of horrors in Biden's America: the environment. "'The left's agenda isn't about protecting the environment, it's about punishing America, and that's true,' he said in Florida, where he stopped before a North Carolina campaign rally to sign a decade-long ban on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. In North Carolina hours later, Trump reiterated his check list of items Democrats won't allow, misleadingly describing coronavirus restrictions on large crowds as he bragged about the thousands of people who had shown up to see him speak in recent weeks." FROM 30,000 FEET -- "Campaign of contrasts: Trump's raucous crowds vs. Biden's distanced gatherings," by WaPo's Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Annie Linskey in Londonderry, N.H.: "When the announcer at President Trump's recent rally here urged a packed airplane hangar of supporters to don their masks, a cacophonous round of boos erupted, followed by defiance. No matter that the attendees' chairs were inches apart, their temperatures had not been taken and masks were required by the state. "Joe Biden, meanwhile, has barely left his home without a mask for months, and he makes a point of keeping voters — when he encounters any — at a distance from himself and one another. Events at drive-in theaters have been kept under 50 — people, not cars — to respect state guidelines. "This contrast continued Tuesday, when Trump flew to Florida and North Carolina, addressing crowds in both places, while Biden's camp announced by 9:30 a.m. he would make no public appearances all day. It's a likely snapshot of the race's final eight weeks: one campaign fueled by in-person events, raucous gatherings and defiant crowds flouting health rules; the other driven by quiet, small-bore events with everyone masked and spaced apart." WaPo STEVEN SHEPARD: "POLITICO Election Forecast: Trump running out of time to turn around 2020 campaign": "The door isn't closed on President Donald Trump's reelection, but time is running short. Labor Day once marked the start of concerted general-election campaigning, but it comes with a far greater sense of urgency this year for Trump. Because of coronavirus-related changes in election administration across the country, more Americans than ever are expected to cast their ballots early this year, whether by mail or in person. "And Trump, who didn't get the election-changing convention bounce he hoped for, still trails Joe Biden by a significant margin among voters nationally — and by varying, but mostly smaller, gaps in many of the key battleground states. The latest updates to POLITICO's Election Forecast point to a relatively stable political environment, and that's not what the president needs. "Even as turbulence pervades the news around politics, Biden is still staked to a lead and favored to win the presidency, as more than half a million absentee ballots were dropped in the mail last week in North Carolina and Minnesota prepares to open in-person early voting at the end of next week. Biden's edge is not overwhelming, though, given Trump's advantages in the Electoral College. "Meanwhile, the battle for the Senate is as tight as ever, with both parties fighting over a handful of hotly contested seats that will tilt what is likely to be a narrow majority for either side, even as Democrats could strengthen their already tight grasp on the House." POLITICO'S election forecast -- "Trump's lost summer: Focused on Fox News, not on battleground states," by Scott Bland and Elena Schneider | 
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