Stay tuned for a message from Facebook after the show.

Good Thursday morning. I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Jake Sherman. About 20 hours or so ago, Washington's most eager man, Stephen Mnuchin,

said what we've been trying to say for weeks about COVID relief. He said this. At this point,

getting something done before the election

and executing on that will be difficult. Correct. There are real-world implications here, which

we've tried to lay out. The Washington Post, Jeff Stein, has done a better job of enumerating them.

Airline workers are going to get laid off. People will go without enhanced unemployment,

and states and localities will be pinched. But there's something that's not getting nearly enough attention. It seems completely

plausible that not only will COVID relief be delayed for now, but could be delayed for several

months and even slip into the first quarter of 2021. For argument's sake, let's assume the Democrats

definitely keep control of the House, as everyone

is predicting.

And let's just acknowledge that the folks over at 18 acres, the White House, keep telling us they

don't see President Donald Trump cutting a deal in the lame duck.

We're not sure they have any idea what Trump wants or doesn't want or how he'll act.

So we're going to focus on how some of the more rational actors may act in the lame duck. Let's level set here. If the election

results come in well after November 4th, we assume that any legislating will be put on hold.

This would also throw leadership elections into flux and generally complicate

the legislative landscape between November 4th and January. But there are a host of other scenarios

worth digging into. Remember, this is in the lame duck. We'll get to 2021 in a minute. First up,

Biden wins and Dems win the Senate. This is the blue wave that everyone's talking about,

...