Donald Trump was back to his usual self on Wednesday, reversing his humble acceptance of second place in Iowa to slam Ted Cruz on Twitter.

"Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he illegally stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!" Trump wrote before deleting his tweet and re-posting it without the word "illegally."

Trump's accusation against Cruz likely comes from an email circulated by Cruz's campaign that seemed to imply Ben Carson was dropping out of the race; Carson's team responded to say that no such claim was true. However, The Washington Post points out that because Carson's support was already so low in Iowa, there is no evidence to suggest the email from Cruz's campaign made any difference in the outcome of the caucus:

Even if that had been what sank Carson in the polls, there's nothing illegal about it — much less suggestive that Cruz stole the state. Cruz beat Trump by more than three points, which is a pretty big margin considering the crowded field.

While the focus of the tweet isn't clear (we reached out to the campaign), it's easier to guess why "illegally" was removed. Suggesting without basis that someone broke the law is the sort of thing that lawyers like to argue over during defamation lawsuits. [The Washington Post]

Trump is never one to let a perceived wrong go unaccounted for; you can bet any follow-up will appear on his Twitter. Jeva Lange

There is little doubt in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was behind the Democratic National Committee hacks, although Russia has denied such allegations. Republican nominee Donald Trump has also dismissed any certainty that Russia was trying to toggle with the U.S. election: "I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC," he said at the presidential debate Monday. "[Clinton is] saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't — maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?"

It is a curious deflection, especially since Trump might know even more about the hack than he is letting on:

[The] U.S. intelligence community has "high confidence" that Russian intelligence services were in fact responsible, multiple intelligence and national security officials tell Time. Trump was informed of that assessment during a recent classified intelligence briefing, a U.S. official familiar with the matter tells Time. "I do not comment on information I receive in intelligence briefings, however, nobody knows with definitive certainty that this was in fact Russia," Trump told Time in a statement. "It may be, but it may also be China, another country or individual." [Time]

President Barack Obama, for his part, has not been shy about sharing that he believes Russia is behind the cyberattack. "Experts have attributed this to the Russians," he said without any uncertainty or disclaimers last July.

Read more about the hack, and the shady group, Fancy Bear, that seems to be tied up in it, at Time. Jeva Lange

"Are there any fans of big banks tonight?" Stephen Colbert asked on Wednesday's Late Show. "All right," he said when the crowd remained silent, "then this is the story for you." The story was the massive fraud at Wells Fargo, where employees were pressured to open up to 2 million accounts without informing the customers. "That's right," Colbert said, "not even a customary form letter that said 'Congratulations! You are pre-approved to get totally screwed!'"

CEO John Stumpf "stepped up and took personal responsibility by firing 5,300 low-level employees he blamed for the problem," Colbert said with mock solemnity. "It takes true leadership to stand up and say the buck stops 5,300 other places." Stumpf made $200 million as his bank ruined thousands of credit ratings, he added, so "I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: Go Stumpf yourself." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) essentially did that when she "dragged Stumpf in front of the Senate and tore him a new Stumpf-hole," Colbert said.

After ripping the CEO a Stumpf-hole of his own, Colbert rolled his eyes over the $41 million Stumpf will forfeit in stock and the ouster of retail banking head Carrie Tolstedt — months before her planned retirement — and said if you're worried about Stumpf and Tolstedt (nobody was), fear not: she will likely walk away with $77 million in stock options and him, $200 million in cash. "That's how you teach white collar crime doesn't pay," Colbert said. "It's like when a cop catches a burglar in the act of robbing your house and says, 'Put down that TV, buddy, now here's $200 million.'" Watch below. Peter Weber

President Obama answered questions from a military audience Wednesday night in a town hall in Fort Lee, Virginia, hosted by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper. The audience — military veterans, families, and service members — asked searing, often personal questions, and Obama did his best to answer them. The questions ranged from delays at Veterans Administration hospitals to PTSD stigmatization to why Obama doesn't use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to what he thinks about 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick not standing for the national anthem before games, plus broader questions about U.S. military involvement in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Obama said the critique of him not using "radical Islamic terrorist" is a "sort of manufactured" issue, and not helpful. "These are people who've killed children, killed Muslims, take sex slaves, there's no religious rational that would justify in any way any of the things that they do," he said. "When you start calling these organizations Islamic terrorists, the way it is heard, the way it is received by our friends and allies around the world, is that somehow Islam is terroristic.... If you had an organization that was going around killing and blowing people up and said, 'We're on the vanguard of Christianity,' as a Christian, I'm not going to let them claim my religion and say, 'you're killing for Christ.' I would say, that's ridiculous.... Call these folks what they are, which is killers and terrorists."

At another point, Obama told Tapper, "There hasn't been probably a week that has gone by in which I haven't examined some of the underlying premises around how we are dealing with this situation in Syria." As "heartbreaking" as it is to watch the carnage, he added, "there is not a scenario in which, absent us deploying large numbers of troops, we can stop a civil war in which both sides are deeply dug in." When an audience member asked Obama what he would do if daughters Sasha and Malia wanted to enlist in the armed forces, Obama replied, "I'd say, go for it," though he would "be lying if I said I wouldn't sometimes get nervous about possible deployments. Your kids are your kids and you want to keep them tucked in in their pajamas for the rest of your lives if you had the chance." You can watch a 2-minute recap of the town hall below. Peter Weber

On Wednesday's Kelly File, Megyn Kelly aired an unbroadcast clip of her Tuesday interview with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, whom Hillary Clinton name-checked during Monday's debate and Donald Trump keeps calling fat. "You tell me whether this is good or bad that here we are on Wednesday and the country's still talking about it," Kelly asked Dana Perino, former White House press secretary under George. W Bush. "I would say that it is not good," Perino said. "It's not good for the country, and I don't think it's good for either campaign."

Hillary Clinton had obviously set a trap for Trump, Perino said, "and he had warning this was going to come. You can't plan for everything in your life," especially past things you've said, she added, but "dealing with how he's treated women in the past should not come as a surprise in the campaign against Hillary Clinton." "No, no, it should not have," Kelly said, "and I'll give you Exhibit A... in our case for the reason why Donald Trump should not have been surprised that the women issue was going to come at him." Exhibit A was Kelly's eerily similar question to Trump in a famous August 2015 GOP primary debate. "I tried to warn you," Kelly said after the clip. (To be fair to Trump, though, watch the 2015 audience's reaction to his disparagement of Rosie O'Donnell.)

Perino compared Clinton's surfacing of Machado to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry in 2004, then said that Clinton "is narrow-casting as well. It's not just women writ large that she's talking to but also Latina women in particular." "That's right, and even tonight, as the Trump campaign clearly wants to move beyond this, Newt Gingrich is out there, bringing it up again," Kelly sighed, "saying you can't gain a bunch of weight when you become Miss Universe." "Stop talking about women's weight all together," Perino said. "Stop." "You know what, if you want to increase your numbers with women, yeah, just stop telling us how fat we are?" Kelly said. "Because that, it turns out, doesn't make us feel very good. Especially when you have been classified as overweight, and we just don't want to hear it." Peter Weber

A new report from Amnesty International claims that since January, more than 200 people in Darfur, including children, have been killed by chemical weapons dropped by the Sudanese government.

For 13 years, Sudanese forces and rebels have been fighting in the region, and in mid-January, the government launched an offensive against the Sudan Liberation Army. Amnesty International's Tirana Hassan, director of crisis research, told the BBC that over the course of an eight month investigation in Jebel Marra, a remote part of Darfur, they found dozens of witnesses to at least 30 attacks using chemical weapons.

The "scale and brutality of these attacks is hard to put into words," Hassan said. Investigators saw images and videos of children covered with lesions and blisters, some vomiting, others unable to breathe. The witnesses told Amnesty International that after bombs were dropped, the smoke that filled the air smelled "unusual," and within minutes, people would begin to vomit, and later, their eyes and skin changed color. Some children died, while others remained in pain months after attacks. Two independent chemical weapons experts said the injuries were consistent with a chemical attack, the BBC reports, and Amnesty International is calling for an investigation. "The fact that Sudan's government is now repeatedly using those weapons against their own people simply cannot be ignored and demands action," Hassan said. Catherine Garcia

We no longer have to imagine what the first presidential debate would have been like had Seth Meyers been the moderator.

On Wednesday's Late Night, the host asked several oddball questions, splicing in answers given by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during Monday's debate — for instance, when "asking" Clinton how she feels about "the fact that Trump exclusively dates younger woman," she "responded," "Today's my granddaughter's second birthday, so I think about this a lot." This faux debate is only slightly wackier than the one that actually took place — if there's a reality TV star participating, why can't a late night talk show host be the moderator? Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

More than 80 million Americans skipped Monday Night Football to watch the first Donald Trump–Hillary Clinton presidential debate, "which I think is a sign of the Apocalypse," Samantha Bee said on Wednesday night's Full Frontal. "For once, concussion-ball was not as compelling as watching American democracy play Russian roulette." She touched on Trump's frequent interruptions, the one "portion of the debate set aside for white people to awkwardly tackle the topic of race," and the dearth of real-time fact-checking — sometimes combining all three topics in creative ways.

"Speaking of black people in uncomfortable situations, you may have noticed the very occasional presence of moderator and interruptee Lester Holt," Bee said. Holt made at least one "solid fact check," but "unfortunately, Lester seemed to be out of the room when Trump delivered most of his other whoppers. Maybe he went out to jam with his band. Ah, he plays bass, of course — the instrument that you're pretty sure is in the mix somewhere, even though you usually can't hear it." Mean.

Then she got to the part where Donald really blew it. "Trump warned us that Hermione Clinton would be cheating by doing something called 'preparing,' like some kind of busybody PTA mom kind of overplanner," Bee said. "But Trump never considered the possibility that she might be a Count of Monte Cristo overplanner. She spent months building an elaborate trap for Trump, and he lumbered right into it." That would be the part where America met former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. "Those wily Clinton bastards knew there are three things Trump can't resist: Calling women names, doubling down, and making dumb mistakes on Fox & Friends," Bee said, then she addressed Trump: "You had a stunningly beautiful Miss Universe winner, but you treated her like garbage — now you have a real problem. Not only with her, but with any woman who's ever been called fat — which is all of us. We've been dealing with you our whole life." She ended with a MASH note to Megyn Kelly — watch below. Peter Weber