The ex-factor

Donald J. Trump was on a roll, headed for the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his stunning use of hydroxychloroquine as a placebo for the coronavirus.

In announcing that he was taking the anti-malarial drug, which he wasn't at that time, Trump started a panic-buying, which he felt would give his White House doctors a clear view of whether the drug worked on Covid-19. 

The drug actually worked – on malaria. None of the thousands of the drug's panic-buyers came down with malaria, although 23% did test positive for coronavirus. Secure in this knowledge of the drug's lack of efficacy, Trump announced that he was ceasing to take the drug which he wasn't taking, and announced that this decision was Nobel-worthy because he had alerted the world that hydroxy was not the cure. 

In the meantime, he had a phone call from the CEO of Bayer that there was some interesting top-secret testing for the company's ex-lax brand as a cure for the dread virus. “Mr. President, massive  amounts of our chewy, chocolate medical treat are proving to perhaps maybe clean the system so deeply and thoroughly that even the lungs respond, and are miraculously cleansed,” the exec told a very attentive Trump. “We're calling it Poop Therapy and feel that in-depth White House testing would speed the drug to a waiting, desperate country. To date, we have found that six daily chewings does the trick.” 

The next morning, bowls of ex-lax were placed next to the Kool-Aid bowls with directions to chew a piece every two hours. The rest of the day saw long lines of masked staff leading to the White House bathrooms. By mid-afternoon, a row of porta-potties stood in the Rose Garden with lines of pained-faced workers dancing from foot to foot in what came to be called the ex-lax rhumba. In one unfortunate instance, Kellyanne Conway didn't make it to a porta-potty in time and earned the nickname Brown Pants. Stephen Miller took take-out ex-lax home to his quarantined wife, who spent the rest of the day moping between bedroom and bathroom.

By the second Poop Therapy day the White House was running dangerously low on toilet paper and President Trump issued an executive order for Air Force One to make a trip to the Scott Paper factory in Florida and load up with that day's production. 

With the toilet paper problem solved for the time being, Trump's amazingly brilliant doctors – fresh-faced interns who had replaced the hide-bound old-timers like the disgraced Anthony Fauci – were seeing that the Poop Therapy was doing what it was supposed to do: produce tons of fecal matter that could be readily analyzed by the waiting young interns, noses closed with clothespins through their masks. 

After a week of Poop Therapy testing, the would-be MDs released their findings: not one ounce of shit had the virus. This was, of course, a major breakthrough. 

Ex-lax immediately produced an ad that heralded “the cleanest poop on earth” and showed Trump popping a fresh ex-lax into his mouth and telling the camera, “Come clean, America, and defeat the hidden enemy.”

The White House had wanted the CEO of Bayer to appear with the president, but he was unfortunately detained in the ICU fighting for his life on a suspect ventilator.

“No shit?” Trump said when he heard the news.