After Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spent yesterday crowing about winning the debate via online polls and Fox News tried very hard to look the other way about the dubious source, a Fox News executive put her foot down in a memo obtained by Business Insider.

The memo, issued Tuesday afternoon, reminded producers that unscientific online polls don’t meet “our editorial standards.”

Dana Blanton, Vice President of public opinion research at Fox News, explained what everyone in politics already knows in the memo, and that is that “online ‘polls’ like the one on Drudge, Time, etc. where people can opt-in or self-select … are really just for fun.”

Blanton then went through the obvious reasons why online polls aren’t scientific just on their own. Furthering the issue with citing these polls is the fact that these polls had been gamed by a giant ring of Trump supporters.

Of course, knowing they weren’t real didn’t stop Fox hosts from citing the rigged polls showing that Donald Trump had won.

Fox News continued to pretend Trump won Tuesday evening, after the memo was sent out, and Wednesday morning Fox and Friends was busy selling the scam even after it was revealed that the already unscientific polls were rigged by his supporters.

Business Insider noted that Fox News host Sean Hannity cited the rigged polls Tuesday evening, after the memo was sent. Hannity used the polls to once again suggest that the sky isn’t blue and Trump supporters shouldn’t trust people who suggest that it is, “You’ve got this list of polls, Donald Trump wins. You watch TV, Hillary Clinton wins.”

They also noted that Brian Kilmeade touted the online polls during an interview with a Trump official Wednesday morning. “The online polls show you guys won in overwhelming margins,” the “Fox and Friends” co- host said to the official.

Donald Trump then used that scam to further sell the lie by thanking Kilmeade on Twitter for mentioning his win. This is what Donald Trump and Fox News do – it’s a false story propped up with lies and moving the goal posts.

Additionally, Fox News published a story citing the unscientific polls from places like Drudge, which is basically a Trump campaign publicity office. However, at least in the published version Fox News told readers at the end, “The online surveys are not scientific and, in many cases, supporters of either candidate can cast multiple ballots.” So… basically worthless.

In reality, Hillary Clinton dealt a devastating blow to Donald Trump for the entire duration of Monday night’s debate. Not only did everyone, including Republican strategists, admit that it was a win for Clinton with many calling it a blowout, but a real poll done by CNN confirmed the huge Clinton victory.

There is no way that any sentient human being could have watched that debate and came away thinking Donald Trump won. He spent the evening on angry defense, jumped around like a petulant child who had eaten too much sugar, interrupted Clinton during her short allotted time, bragged about not paying taxes, and tried to bully her and ended up looking like a fool when she coolly breezed past his insults and lies – at one moment he blamed her for pretty much every even of the last 30 years and she said by the end of the night everything would be her fault, to which Trump responded, “Why not?”

That’s just one brutal example of Trump falling into a trap to demonstrate how ridiculously self-limited his world view is.

The first presidential debate wasn’t a good night for Donald Trump. It was, in fact, a brutal night for Trump and a triumphant masterpiece of commanding the room by Hillary Clinton.

Trump and Fox et al are busy continuing this lie because this is what they do. They are selling a scam of a man, and so naturally the process of selling him will involve deceit and sleight of hand.

The destructive, toxic results of denying reality and insisting upon a total fabrication being real can’t be stated strongly enough. This is the work of a master abuser and thug, a con artist with bad intentions. We all knew Fox News wasn’t “news”, but Donald Trump is intent on proving just how much of a publicity arm for the GOP the cable station really is.

The Trump Republican gaslighting of America continues.