On September 27, two days before the first debate, ABC News called the campaign for comment because the ABC affiliate in Florida was reporting that Brad Parscale was holed up in his house—shots may have been fired; it was possibly a hostage situation. Shortly, a video would surface of Parscale, bare-chested in cargo pants and holding a beer, being tackled by a police officer.

“Man, that guy has some fucking problems,” acknowledged an astonished Trump. The psychotic break of the architect of the Trump political operation seemed to many in the Trump orbit consistent with the campaign’s troubles.

On debate day, the key group gathered in the Map Room at the White House for a final prep session to pump up the inner (and outer) Trump. Chris Christie—maliciously or tactically or both—suddenly turned the practice session, by now a rote affair, into something much different: “You have blood on your hands,” said Christie, sitting directly across from the president and, theoretically, channeling Biden. “You’re a complete failure. All these people have died from the virus. And it’s your fault.” Worst of all, said Christie playing Biden, Trump had attacked Biden through his son, when Trump’s own family was full of problems! Christie appeared to be trying to reinforce the plan to attack Biden aggressively, at the same time profoundly misreading how his old friend would respond to this approach—even as the president glared at Christie, arms tightly crossed and becoming clearly agitated.

“Mr. President, you have only ever shown callous indifference at every point when you should have shown concern and compassion. It was your coddling of the racists in Charlottesville…”

Looking back, people in the room judged Christie’s attack on the president to have worked, to have turned up Trump’s fury—but to have turned it up way too much. All challenges to Trump meant, invariably, a response at an always greater level of ferocity, and Christie had vastly raised the bar. This not only set Trump toward an attack on Biden, but also, as observers would judge in hindsight, broke his relationship with his old crony.

In the history of televised U.S. presidential debates, this one was the most disastrous. In the Trump camp postmortem, it was Biden’s fault. (It could not, certainly, be Trump’s fault.) They were foiled by, and had no reasonable way to anticipate, the extent of Biden’s weakness. Biden was not strong enough to counter or object to Trump’s interruptions. Hence, there was no drag on Trump’s unrelieved attack—which, unbound, became more determined and furious, if not incomprehensible and, at moments, seemingly deranged.

And compounding everything, there was Chris Christie afterward, being interviewed on television saying what a rotten job the president had done.

And then, at the point where little could have gotten worse, in the succession of falling West Wing dominoes, the president got COVID.