What did Donald Trump do today?

He sent his staff out to clean up the mess he made trying to bribe Americans for votes last night.

Last night, in the first of two speeches he's giving at the two-night "midterm convention" he called in Dallas, Trump blurted out a plan to give every adult American $5,000—but only if Republicans win the midterm.

TRUMP: And here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success—in history, we have never had anything like what's happening—I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.

It's possible Trump made it up on the spot, although a handful of his aides are now saying they'd been looped in. Most, however, were clearly surprised by Trump announcing what amounts to an election bribe of $1.3 trillion dollars.

For comparison, that is more than half of the total individual income tax revenue collected last year. It's bigger than the defense budget, but it's smaller than the roughly $12 trillion Trump has added to the United States' total $40 trillion national debt during his time in office.

Reaction to Trump's latest attempt to make himself the focus of the midterm elections can be divided into two camps. Democrats and independents reacted with scorn and mockery, while Republicans mostly expressed emotions ranging from discomfort to horror. 

The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that no such money will ever be forthcoming. Even Trump's assistant press secretary, Davis Ingle, refused to actually acknowledge the sum of money or any plans to pay it out, saying only that Trump would "keep delivering real results."

Where promises to pay Americans thousands of dollars out of their own government's treasury is concerned, though, Trump has never delivered a single dollar. In his second term alone, he's promised at least $12,000: the $5,000 from last night, a separate $5,000 "DOGE dividend," $2,000 in "tariff rebates," and $1,000-$1,500 to take the place of the Affordable Care Act.

Whether or not Trump had any intention of making those payments, there wouldn't have been any money to give out. DOGE's real purpose was to purge nonpartisan government employees, but what "savings" it delivered while destroying important parts of the machinery of the federal government amount to less than $10 per American. Tariff revenues—which Trump has already "spent" anyway, at least in his mind—are about $130 billion higher than in previous years, or about $390 per American. (That's money Americans already lost in the form of higher prices.) And the ACA money, in Trump's mind, would have been to replace all health insurance and return to paying all medical bills out of pocket.

Trump also tried to join in the clean-up effort today, although not in a way that's likely to help much. In an interview with Fox News that aired today, he was asked why, if he had any intention of issuing such a "dividend," he didn't do it now instead of demanding a victory for his party in the midterms first. Trump stammered, "Because they can't—I tell you what, the Democrats can't do it."

Republicans, not Democrats, currently control both houses of Congress.

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point, all a lie tells you is how stupid the person telling it thinks you are. 

• Even the worst presidents before Trump never got this desperate.