He continued: “Unfortunately, when I went to talk, they turned the mic up and down. ... So we had a real problem.”

So the guy who has been blaming the mic for the past week and a half is no longer blaming the mic. He's blaming the sound guy ... or maybe the speakers. Or something.

Trump's complaints about the microphone have become a regular feature of his public appearances since his poor debate performance last week, almost as if he's using it as an excuse (almost!). And the Commission on Presidential Debates, in a brief statement, gave him some backup, eventually confirming that there was a problem with audio levels — though it didn't specifically mention Trump's microphone.

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“Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump's audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall,” the commission said.

But through it all, Trump hasn't really said what about the microphone might have actually hurt him. He's basically dangled it out there and let people choose their own adventure. He has simply said it was “bad” and “difficult” and suggested that it was maybe part of a plot against him by the commission — with no evidence that it was.

Here's Trump after the debate: “They gave me a defective mic. Did you notice that? My mic was defective within the room. I wonder, was that on purpose? Was that on purpose? But I had a mic that didn't work properly.”

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Here's what he said on Fox News the next morning: “I don't know if you saw that in the room, but my microphone was terrible. I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose?”

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Here's him after the commission's announcement on Sept. 30: “Working that microphone was a hell of a lot more difficult than working Crooked Hillary Clinton — that I can tell you. ... It was difficult. ... You know, when you have a situation like that, and you know it's bad, and you think you have a hundred million people watching, what do you do? Stop the show? Please fix — it was bad.”

So was he distracted? Was the glitch happening throughout the debate? Precisely how did this hamper his performance?