“A recent article somewhere said Donald Trump is a world-class businessman who goes out and he does get along with everybody,” said Donald Trump early in Thursday’s Republican debate in Detroit. The only “recent article somewhere” I can find where this is true is a December 29 Washington Post article. In the Post story, Trump is indeed described as a “world-class businessman”—by Trump himself.

Trump’s Republican rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio spent a great chunk of the debate trying to disabuse primary voters of the idea that Trump is anything but a low-class huckster. The result was that the GOP frontrunner became flustered as he tried to defend what has been one of his greatest assets: his business record.