By the time the first presidential debate was over on Monday night, the media consensus was clear: Hillary Clinton was poised and presidential, while Donald Trump was a raging mansplainer who interrupted his opponent 51 times, lied repeatedly, and bragged about not paying taxes and exploiting the housing crisis. Perhaps sensing he’d been trounced, the Republican nominee made a beeline from the stage to the spin room, where he portrayed himself as a hero for what he didn’t say. “I’m really happy I was able to hold back on the indiscretions in regard to Bill Clinton,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Because I have a lot of respect for Chelsea Clinton.” When Bash asked him to clarify, he replied, “Maybe I’ll tell you at the next debate.”



Trump: "I'm very happy that I was able to hold back" on Bill Clinton's "indiscretions" https://t.co/iXIwDaIPem https://t.co/LKaHt4NI6b — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 27, 2016

Following Trump’s lead, surrogate Newt Gingrich told Fox News, “That may have been the best moment of the debate for Donald Trump because it showed that unlike Hillary Clinton, for whom nothing is too mean or despicable, he actually was willing to set a standard of being decent. And I’m very proud of him.” And Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday, “I have to say, certainly as a woman, I appreciated the restraint at the end. I am not sure I would have been able to exercise it myself. But restraint is a virtue, and it’s a presidential virtue.” She added that Trump exhibited “great temperament and restraint” by not attacking Clinton, “after she accused him of being terrible with women.”

There’s a word for this rhetorical device: apophasis, or the art of raising an issue by saying you are not going to talk about it. It’s a major instrument in Trump’s toolbox, one he’s relied on to slyly attack his opponents. At a rally in January, for instance, Trump said, “I was going to say ‘dummy’ Bush. I won’t say it. I won’t say it.” At a rally the following month, a woman yelled that primary opponent Ted Cruz was a “pussy”—a remark not audible to the entire audience. “You’re not allowed to say it, and I never expect to hear it from you ever again. She said that he’s a pussy,” Trump said into the microphone, thereby amplifying an insult that most attendees—not to mention the media and its consumers—never would have known about.

Apophasis is part of Trump’s broader tendency to keep controversial issues afloat through reversals and innuendo, as he’s done for many months on the subject of Bill Clinton’s infidelity. Just last weekend, in response to the Clinton campaign’s invitation of Trump detractor Mark Cuban to the debate, Trump tweeted:

If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2016

Conway later insisted that Flowers, one of Bill Clinton’s former lovers, was not formally invited, while running mate Mike Pence insisted that Trump was just “mocking” the Clinton campaign. By then, the story had dominated half of the 24-hour political news cycle.