One cause (or is it an effect?) of the president’s garrulousness is his need to load the answer to any question with those set pieces he keeps always at hand, those patented references to the disgraceful Russia hoax and the Mueller investigation and the failure of the Chinese to stop the virus, and so on. By my count, there are more than 20 of these word lumps. They vary in size. They line up in the president’s brain like skydivers at the open door of a plane, ready to be shoved out at any moment. He repeats them with undiminished pleasure and insistence, and seldom with any recognition that everyone within earshot has heard them dozens of times before.

This week will be known to Trumpologists of the future for the addition of a new word lump. It centers on the word “transition.”

“We have a transition third quarter,” Trump said at a Fox News town hall last weekend, speaking of the economy. “We’re going to have a very good fourth quarter. We’re going to have a great next year.”

This is the new lump in larval form, without the president’s embellishment.