Photograph by Justin Sullivan / Getty

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (The Borowitz Report)—CNN launched an urgent manhunt Monday after Lester Holt, the moderator of the first Presidential debate of the 2016 general election, mysteriously vanished two minutes into the contest.

Network officials became concerned after the two Presidential nominees, Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton, were observed shrieking at each other nonstop for ninety seconds without intervention by Holt.

The executives’ alarm spiked when a camera angle intended to show Mr. Holt instead revealed that he was missing from the moderator’s chair.

CNN immediately notified law enforcement, which started searching the environs of Hofstra University, all while Clinton and Trump continued barking at each other unabated.

Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN, issued an impassioned plea to Holt to return to the debate venue at Hofstra as soon as possible. “You don’t even have to moderate the debate,” Zucker said. “We just want to know that you’re O.K.”

Read actual news about the first debate: Amy Davidson on Donald Trump as a failed bully and John Cassidy on Trump's self-inflicted errors.