At one point in the debate, Democrat Tim Kaine delivered this set piece:

I just want to talk about the tone that's set from the top. Donald Trump during his campaign has called Mexicans rapists and criminals. He's called women slobs, pigs, dogs, disgusting. I don't like saying that in front of my wife and my mother. He attacked an Indiana-born federal judge and said he was unqualified to hear a federal lawsuit because his parents were Mexican. He went after John McCain, a POW, and said he wasn't hero because he’d been captured. He said African-Americans are living in hell. And he perpetrated this outrageous and bigoted lie that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

Kaine’s litany featured a few moments of hyperbole and exaggeration—did Trump really call all Mexicans rapists and criminals? It may depend whether you focus on what he said explicitly, or what you think he meant to imply—but it’s basically all correct. None of these moments are obscure; each was covered heavily and is well-known.

In another peculiar moment, Pence attacked Barack Obama under the guise of attacking Vladimir Putin, saying that “the small and bullying leader of Russia is now dictating terms to the United States to the point where all the United States of America.” He went on to say that the U.S must project military strength globally. Trump, of course, has said much the opposite, questioning the value of American alliances, suggesting he would drop U.S. objections to the illegal Russian annexation of Crimea, and repeatedly praising Putin. Pence himself said that it’s “inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country.” When Kaine tried to point this out, Pence falsely claimed he had never said such a thing.

Pence’s flat denials seemed to throw Kaine off balance during the debate, as he repeatedly called for Pence to defend the indefensible, and Pence simply refused to admit it had even happened. But with reality setting in, Pence’s strategy starts to look laughable.

Or does it? It’s easy to construct a case that Pence’s tack was the best one possible, and might actually work out well for him, especially depending on how you define “work.” Let’s posit that Pence was starting out with a tough hand: His running mate has made a long string of damaging and controversial comments, and Pence himself has often stood at odds with Trump’s positions in the past.

First, what happens on the stage likely matters more than the fact-checks that come later. There’s a much larger audience for the debate than there is for the fact-checks in Wednesday’s papers.

Second, insofar as debates matter—which evidence suggests is very little, and even less for vice-presidential debates—Tuesday night’s contest gives the Republican ticket a slight breather after more than a week of brutal headlines, many of them stoked by Trump’s insistence on turning mountains into molehills. It won’t change the polling momentum, but it might help with morale.