LOS ANGELES (The Borowitz Report)—After learning that Donald J. Trump was still stinging from having lost an Emmy for “The Celebrity Apprentice,” the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences offered to give the former reality-show host a belated Emmy if he will drop out of the 2016 race.

"We never imagined that if we had simply given you an Emmy back in the day our current national nightmare might have been avoided," a Television Academy spokesman said in an online video.

Displaying an Emmy statuette, the spokesman said, "Here's your Emmy, Mr. Trump, all gold and shiny, just the way you like things to be."

Reached by reporters, the spokesman said that the Academy decided to give Trump the belated Emmy because the organization felt "terrible" about the unwitting role it had played in bringing the United States to the brink of destruction.

"Historically, television has been blamed for a lot," the spokesman said. "We wanted to show that when the very existence of the entire world is at stake television does the right thing."

More on the third Presidential debate: John Cassidy on Trump's "rigged" comments, and Amy Davidson on Hillary Clinton, "nasty woman."