There wasn't much substance. There were not many grounded, documented facts mentioned or ironclad policy proposals. It was, to be honest, pretty much what the political press and anyone following the 2016 campaign closely have come to expect when Donald Trump is on a stage. But then, something remarkable happened.

In response to a campaign trail jab made by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) -- the college debate-team member and the candidate who overall put in one of the stronger performances at Thursday's debate -- about "New York values," Trump delivered something we have not seen or heard from him before. Trump deployed some of his considerable political skill and generated one of the most noble moments of the entire night.

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New York is a great place. It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. You had two 100 -- you had two 110-story buildings come crashing down. I saw them come down. Thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there, and I've never seen anything like it. And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death. Nobody understood it. And it was with us for months -- the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.

Beating up on New York -- finding ways to zero in on the aggressive, dirty and uber-expensive slices of city life that New Yorkers take in stride in exchange for, well, everything else -- is kind of a shared hobby in the rest of America. Now, it can and must be said here that engaging in this activity in some parts of the country makes about as much sense as bullying the scrawny, computer-obsessed kid at your high school. Not only is it unkind and a poor reflection on self, but it makes little sense when that kid is also the odds-on most likely candidate to one day become a tech-industry millionaire and your employer.

But if Trump is one thing, he is a New Yorker who knows how to clap back when an insult or even a legitimate critique comes his way. However, instead of lashing out with some kind of nobody-talks-bad-about-my-city strong-man talk, what Trump said Thursday about New York City was kind of, sort of, moving.

Trump took America back to the utterly terrifying days and weeks after Sept.11, 2001. He made it clear to all of America that whatever terror, anger and sadness was experienced in the rest of America, for New Yorkers, the sights, sounds and smells -- yes the smells -- of terrorism were immediate, tangible and engulfing. But New York City did not lie down.

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On Thursday, Trump did what Rudy Giuliani tries so often to do but fails on even his least-angry days. And that thing was help the rest of America connect with New York City via 9/11 in a meaningful and dignified way. The former Republican mayor too often gets lost in 9/11 references that aggrandize him and his sense of his own centrality to the city's survival. On Thursday, Trump -- of all people -- managed to remind America of both the grit and the wonder that make New York unique and great. He invoked 9/11 and reminded voters across the country that New York is a city, and a city full of people that America is fortunate to have.

Of course, after that moment passed, there was some more talk about weak men and weak leadership and mysterious "somethings" going on. Before it, there was an impassioned but factually unarmored claim that Syrian refugees are an all-male corps of potential terrorists. But, by golly, Donald Trump spoke up for New York City on Thursday night.

We are almost as shocked as you probably are that we've put the words "noble" and "Trump" on the same page. The man has toyed with the techniques and tools of fascism so often that other Republicans have expressed concern about what he is doing to the political culture and country -- just this week. He has sanctioned the physical assault of protesters at his campaign events. He has called for walls and mass deportations and religious-group bans on immigration. He has all but invented new super-superlatives to describe himself, his businesses and his skills. He has said almost unrepeatable things about women and Mexican illegal immigrants and Muslims. He said Thursday night, "I will gladly accept the mantle of anger." Trust. We have forgotten none of that.

But perhaps some of Trump supporters have seen other glimpses of the Trump who made a brief, not at all self-aggrandizing, appearance on the debate stage. These voters are either deeply, deeply perceptive or very good at self-deception. But this much we can say for sure: For one moment Thursday night, there was a glimmer of a Trump that few of the rest of us have ever seen.