PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY

SIMI VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (The Borowitz Report) - A thorough fact checking reveals that Wednesday night’s Republican Presidential debate was four per cent fact, fact checkers reported Thursday morning.

According to HonestyWatch, a Minnesota-based fact-checking organization, over the course of three hours the Republican candidates served up between eight and twelve facts, not including their names and job descriptions.

While few of the facts that were dispensed during the debate related to policy matters, viewers did learn that Jeb Bush smoked pot in high school, and that Donald Trump had not yet ridiculed Rand Paul’s looks, the fact checkers found.

At CNN, the debate moderator, Jake Tapper, said he was proud of the role he played in keeping the evening’s fact content to a minimum.

“Whenever I felt the candidates were straying into the issues, I tried to goad them into insulting each other,” he said. “I didn't succeed every time, but all in all I feel good about the night.”

While Tapper might be happy with Wednesday’s contest, it failed to match the benchmark set by August’s Fox News debate, which came in at three per cent fact.