Watching Fox News after the presidential debate on Tuesday, I found the atmosphere hard to describe. Gloomy comes to mind – a bit like what you might find at a funeral, say, of a beloved cat that was eaten by a political bogeyman.

Donald Trump had just spent nearly the entire 90-minute debate with Kamala Harris venting anger into his microphone, a complete 180-degree contrast from his previous performance, against Joe Biden. If he held out for the first bit, Trump quickly fell into the traps Harris had set for him — about his crowd sizes, his standing among military leaders, his standing among world leaders — and the results were stark. For anyone watching who had perhaps forgotten what the Trump years were like, it was an intense reminder.

When the ABC moderators finally wrapped up and the lights came up on the Fox News panel, the anchors looked just as shocked as the viewers at home. You knew things were looking bleak when host Jesse Watters tried to emphasize that there was No winners. “I don’t think the American people are watching and thinking that any of these people won,” Watters stammered. He then admitted, “This was tough. This was pretty intense at times.”

Brit Hume, the network’s chief political analyst, was more grim. “Make no mistake: Trump had a bad night,” Hume told Fox viewers. “This was pretty much her night.” Hume sounded exasperated, complaining that Trump had been repeatedly provoked by Harris, prompting Trump to rehash “so many of the old grievances that we’ve long thought Trump had learned, that there’s no winning politically.” Harris, meanwhile, was calm and prepared, Hume said: “She stayed calm.”

“You mean she had a good night?” host Bret Baier asked him.

“I say she certainly did,” said Hume sternly.

On MSNBC, the difference couldn’t have been more stark. Chris Hayes seemed unable to sit still with excitement. Lawrence O’Donnell gleefully proclaimed that Harris had delivered the best performance ever in a presidential debate. Rachel Maddow read the latest news of Taylor Swift’s endorsement of the Harris ticket live on the radio to Governor Tim Walz as if it were a message from God.

But at Fox News, the strategy deployed after the initial shock wore off seemed to be to attack the Real villains: those pesky ABC reporters who asked follow-up questions and fact-checked during the debate, like when they told the American people that there was in fact no evidence to support Trump’s blatantly racist claims that the beloved pets of Springfield, Ohio, were eaten by Haitian migrants.

Soon, a series of friendly faces from Fox News were called in. Host Sean Hannity looked defeated, insisting that the “biggest loser in the debate” was ABC and criticizing the network’s reporters, David Muir and Linsey Davis, as “far-left moderators.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke with the air of someone who was simply grateful to be invited on television, complaining about “the obvious bias of the moderators who were constantly fact-checking President Trump’s trivia.” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called the moderators “a disgrace to journalism.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told viewers that he much preferred the moderating style of CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash because “they asked questions” and “they got out of the way.”*

Eventually, Trump himself entered the debate room, in a rare move for him, and began a sort of impromptu press conference, prompting Hannity to silence Kennedy so that viewers could listen in live. But without a microphone clearly positioned in front of Trump, the audience at home had to scramble to hear him, making for an even more chaotic scene. Instead of the former president, the Fox microphones picked up the sounds of others in the room full of reporters and media figures: “Why don’t you look at her?” “Why don’t you let your performance speak for itself?” Some just snickered audibly at the scene.

When Trump eventually made his way to Hannity’s set for the TV equivalent of a post-game massage, he complained that it had been “three against one” but maintained that it had been his “best debate ever.” Visibly sweaty and with his hair in disarray, he didn’t exactly sound like a victor.

And it was the Fox hosts’ reaction that was most revealing about how the night had gone for Trump. Watters even showed a flash or two of honesty to his audience; between defenses, he groaned that Trump “had moments where you thought, Oh my God! Where is he going with this?“For Fox viewers wondering where Trump had led them Tuesday night, there was indeed one grim answer: “This race just got tighter,” Watters said. said.

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