Following last night’s second Republican presidential debate, former President Donald Trump expressed his gratitude to the other GOP candidates for providing such strong support for his nomination.

“They obviously want me to be the nominee,” Trump said in brief remarks to reporters following his speech to a crowd of striking auto workers. “All of the other Republicans running for president went out of their way in that debate to make sure no one in the country wants to vote for them. They put on a collective debate performance that showed very clearly they wanted me to be the winner of the nomination, and for that, I am grateful. Thank you for being such huge, horrible losers!”

The GOP debate — hailed by those who watched it as an excellent example of how to convince large swaths of the population to strongly dislike you — was marred by candidates trying to talk over each other.