The reviews were almost universally savage after Donald Trump’s debate debacle, in which the former president ranted about migrants eating pets while getting his clock cleaned by an opponent he had insisted was “stupid.” Even the Wall Street Journal’s right-wing editorialists thought that Vice President Kamala Harris “won the debate because she came in with a strategy to taunt and goad Mr. Trump into diving down rabbit holes of personal grievance and vanity,” while Karl Rove added in a column that the night “was a train wreck for him, far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined.”

And then, in a universe all its own, was Fox News.

“All the memorable lines were from Donald Trump,” host Jesse Watters proclaimed after the debate ended. (He specifically cited Trump’s “eating the pets” line.) “He just had some great knockouts,” Watters added. “And so this race just got tighter.”

“That’s probably true,” anchor Bret Baier agreed.

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An ebullient Harris campaign immediately called for another debate. (Trump, who once called for debates “ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE,” eventually refused the challenge after much hemming and hawing.) But Harris’s gesture of confidence prompted Fox News’s Laura Ingraham to argue: “They don’t think she won. They don’t think she’s in a position to win this race.”

Sean Hannity interviewed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who claimed Trump notched “a big win.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump had “the best closing in presidential debate history.”

Trump himself joined Hannity in the spin room. “I think it was my best debate ever,” he said.

And that was just within the first 75 minutes after the debate. The next morning, Trump was back, on “Fox & Friends.” “I won the debate by a lot,” he said, and “every single poll last night had me winning like 90-10.” The hosts did not contradict him. At the same time, Trump argued that ABC News should lose its broadcasting license, because “they had a rigged show with somebody that maybe even had the answers.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Watters returned to the airwaves. “I found [Harris] evasive, found her unlikable, preachy and, instinctually, I don’t know that’s going to play with men,” he said.........

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