Donald Trump does not play by the rules, whether it comes to finance, marriage, and the general standards of human decency. Why, then, would we expect him to obey the rules of a presidential debate?

In two sworn depositions, unsealed Thursday, Donald Trump admitted that he had nothing at all to do with choosing the Trump University instructors, presented for years as his “hand-picked” representatives, who purported to impart his secret knowledge, itself born of years of experience and a Wharton education.

Early Thursday morning, Gawker received an anonymous email with an attachment that purported to contain recordings from Donald Trump’s voicemail inbox. Among the recordings were messages left for Trump by various celebrities—most notably, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Tamron Hall.

The word came in from our best-sourced Fox News Kremlinologists: Fox News had settled for Donald Trump. Roger Ailes had given up on the hapless Marco Rubio. Megyn Kelly was sounding conciliatory, granting that Trump appeared more and more presidential. Rupert Murdoch himself tweeted that the party would be “mad not to unify” around nominee Donald Trump. It worked: Donald Trump arrived, unsuspecting, for his ambush.

Asked in tonight’s debate to elaborate on his earlier declaration that the United States should murder the families of terrorists, Donald Trump pivoted to a discourse on the events of 9/11. As with most of Trump’s remarks about the events of 2001 and beyond, it was a collage of the unorthodox, the insane, and the awful but not untrue.

If there is one thing that really gets under Donald Trump’s mealy skin, it’s when Marco Rubio—anyone really, but especially Marco Rubio—brings up the failed and allegedly fraudulent “Trump University.”

Earlier this week, about 30 black college students were removed from a Donald Trump rally in Georgia, apparently at behest of the campaign. On Thursday, local law enforcement corroborated the students’ claims that they had been ejected at the campaign’s request.

“Look at those hands—are they small hands? And, he referred to my hands, ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you, there’s no problem... I guarantee you.”

In about an hour, Donald Trump will step onto the debate stage in Detroit to loud applause and howling cheers. He will be the clear frontrunner and presumed nominee among the four Republicans onstage. He will also be admitting a mistake, even if tacitly so.

Michael Bloomberg reportedly has an awful lot of feelings about Donald Trump: “Michael thinks Trump is a bloviating, bald-faced liar who can’t be trusted on any deals. He’ll tell you dozens of stories about Trump saying things he knows are patently false.”

The Mexican secretary of finance, Luis Videgaray, said today that Mexico will absolutely not pay for the construction of a wall along the border with the United States: “Let me say this emphatically and categorically: under no circumstances is Mexico going to pay for the wall that Mr Trump is proposing.”

Donald Trump spent his afternoon attempting to flay Mitt Romney in the only way he knows how: by belittling Romney’s political might, masculinity, business acumen and even his wealth. He said Romney would have gotten down on his knees for money in 2012, that Romney ran a horrible presidential campaign, that he’s a “choke artist” who should have beaten Barack Obama, that he was intimidated out of running in 2016 by Jeb Bush, and that Trump owns a single store worth more money than Mitt Romney.

The Huffington Post has a story (currently their big, screaming, front page top story, in fact) on an upcoming Sony Pictures film that opens later this month. The film is a comedy, and it features, they say, a rude joke about Donald Trump. An exceptionally rude joke, that is also so, so funny, according to everyone who has seen the picture. Boy, it’s a good joke, you’d love it.

The video above is about five minutes worth of a glorified roast that lasted something like a half-hour and featured digression after digression—like, for example, an informal poll on who will be a better host of the The Apprentice, Trump or his handpicked successor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom Trump also decided to indirectly humiliate in front of his audience, despite his being, you know, Trump’s handpicked successor.

Way back in 2014, a Cliven Bundy and his band of anti-government gunmen tried to start a small war with the Bureau of Land Management (some of them recently tried again in Oregon). Today, one of the leaders of that fight is in federal custody—and that means Donald Trump is down one campaign officer.

Right now, the “Republican establishment” is busy wringing its hands over what can be done to stop Donald Trump. Do not be deceived. When the time comes, they will all fall in line with Donald Trump.

Today in New Jersey, Chris Christie held a press conference that appeared to mostly be a response to memes about the weirdo glass-eyed stare he had on his face during Donald Trump’s Super Tuesday press event. Speaking to reporters, Christie reiterated that he “wasn’t being held hostage” which is something that only someone currently being held hostage would feel the need to announce.

After the minor scandal that erupted after the white nationalist radio host James Edwards was given press credentials at a Donald Trump rally in Memphis, the Trump campaign deflected criticism by claiming that it provided credentials to every reporter who asked for them. Not true, claims a local black newspaper.

Mitt Romney has scheduled a speech for 9:30 a.m. Utah time today, in which he will make a forceful statement opposing Donald Trump. We know this because Mitt Romney already released the highlights of his speech to major media outlets, so they have time to pre-write stories about his bold move.