We have entered post-reality politics. Donald Trump said last week that NBC's Lester Holt, the moderator for tonight's presidential debate, is a Democrat. The implication was that, like the rest of the liberal mainstream media, Holt would be biased against Trump and that's the only reason he could lose.

"By the way, Lester is a Democrat," Trump said in an interview with Bill O'Reilly. "It's a phony system. They are all Democrats. It's a very unfair system."

Almost immediately, various outlets looked into it and discovered Holt is actually a Republican.

But no matter. Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, joined MSNBC's Morning Joe today, and Mark Halperin asked her about Trump's issues with the truth—namely, that he doesn't seem bothered with telling it. Halperin brought up the Holt example, and Conway let loose one of the more extraordinary defenses of blatant lying there ever was.

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.@KellyannePolls: Trump 'didn't lie' about Lester Holt, 'a lie would mean that he knew the man's party registration' https://t.co/dZWTCwpoim — Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 26, 2016

"I don't know that he knew what Lester Holt's voter registration was," she said, adding: "And I said this week on George Stephanopoulos that I think Lester Holt's a great selection for moderator."

So if you don't know what's true, you can say whatever you want and it's not a lie? This is the kind of accountability we should have for the potential leader of the free world?

Someone needs to hold these people accountable. Halperin, to his credit, tried. But when the laws of political discourse—and reality—no longer apply, it can be mighty hard to do. It seems to be the contention of the Trump campaign that nothing is really true; it only matters what enough people believe, and whether you can dangle enough shiny objects in front of them until the clock runs out on November 8.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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