He lied. He lied from jump. He lied every time he answered a question, and he answered questions far less often than he lied, which was always. He lied by commission—about how every legal scholar back to Hammurabi thought reproductive freedom should be left to “the states,” about how Democratic politicians support the murder of newborns, about how he earned his status as a convicted felon, about his well-adjudicated tryst with Stormy Daniels, and about a hundred other things, large and small. (“I never slept with a porn star,” should be immortal and, beyond its inherent hilarity, it’s a lie.) And he lied by omission, mostly by completely ignoring the questions he was asked and shouting about his own greatness. Moderator—and I use the term very loosely—Dana Bash asked the only question about the climate crisis, and this was his answer in full.

Well, let me just go back to what he said about the police, how close the police are to him. Almost every police group in the nation from every state is supporting Donald J. Trump, almost every police group. And what he has done to the Black population is horrible, including the fact that for ten years he called them super predators. We can’t, in the 1990s, we can’t forget that. “Super predators” was his name. And he called it to them for ten, and they’ve taken great offense at it, and now they see it happening. But when they see what I did for criminal-justice reform and for the historically Black colleges and universities, where I funded them and got them all funded, and the opportunity zones with Tim. As you know, Tim Scott was—incredibly did a great job, a great senator from South Carolina. He came to me with the idea and it was a great idea. It’s one of the most successful economic-development acts ever in the country, opportunity zones. And the biggest beneficiary are Blacks. And that’s why we have the best numbers with them. And maybe ever, if they’re saying ever, I read this morning, wherever, the best numbers, he has lost much of the Black population because he has done a horrible job for Black people. He has also done a horrible job for Hispanics. But why do you see these millions of people pouring into our country and they’re going to take the jobs? And it’s already started. And you haven’t seen anything yet. It’s a disaster.

Oregon is currently burning down. Much of the upper Midwest is underwater. The east coast just spent a week as a blast furnace. And asked what he’d do about it, he talked about how he is Soul Brother No. 1 because Tim Scott said so. Bash actually asked a follow-up, and he traded mendacity for incoherence.

So I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air, and we had it. We had H2O. We had the best numbers ever. And we did—we were using all forms of energy, all forms, everything. And yet, during my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever. And my top environmental people gave me that statistic just before I walked on the stage, actually.

I suspect that one of his “top environmental people” is that noted expert Professor Otto Yerass. What are the “environmental numbers” of which he spoke? And I suspect that his top environmental people are close relatives of the “19 people” who told him that he didn’t call the war dead suckers and losers.

And this was how he answered a question about lowering the cost of health care.

Just you understand, we have polling. We have other things that do—they rate him the worst because what he’s done is so bad. And they rate me—yes, I’ll show you. I will show you. And they rate me one of the best. Okay. And if I’m given another four years, I will be the best. I think I’ll be the best. Nobody’s ever created an economy like us. Nobody ever cut taxes like us. He’s the only one I know. He wants to raise your taxes by four times. He wants to raise everybody’s taxes by four times. He wants the Trump tax cuts to expire so everybody, including the two of you, are going to pay four to five times. Nobody ever heard of this before.

So, he lied.

He told old lies—about the firing of crooked Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, about how he signed a veterans’ health-care plan that was actually signed by President Barack Obama, and about lowering the cost of insulin. And he told new ones—about how the immigrants flooding into the country are living in “luxury hotels” and about how Nancy Pelosi refused his help on January 6 and then took responsibility for the riot herself.

So, he lied.

And he lied. And lied again. And again.

Yes, CNN disgraced itself by committing to a policy whereby the two moderators would not fact-check the participants in real time. Tapper and Bash were operating with ankle weights. (However, David Chalian, the network’s political director, should be updating his résumé at a coffee shop across the street from CNN HQ this morning.) That led us to moments like the following:

TRUMP: He wants open borders. He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up those people as voters. And I don’t think—we just can’t let it happen. If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance. Not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won’t have a country left anymore. That’s how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far.

TAPPER: Thank you, President Trump.

And yes, the president had a bad night and a terrible start. My biggest problem with his performance is that he seemed unable to push back against the lies and the general threat to the republic that they represent. It was plain after about 11 seconds that CNN’s weird policy choice was going to be no help at all. It was up to him. He needed to be the guy who destroyed Paul Ryan by chortling at the zombie-eyed granny starver’s intellectual pretensions. Truth be told, he rallied from about the 30 minute mark on. But not a single mention of Project 2025? C’mon, man.

But I choose to remember that the other guy lied. About all things, large and small. Except for one thing. Asked about whether or not he would accept the results in November, win or lose, he first started raving about Ukraine and World War III. Bash asked him again, and he lightly sideswiped the truth.

If it’s a fair and legal and good election—absolutely. I would have much rather accepted these, but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous that if you want, we’ll have a news conference on it in a week or we’ll have another one of these on—in a week.

Even when he approaches the truth, he lies.

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.