Donald Trump's main defense of Trump University, in the face of several fraud lawsuits and campaign attacks, has been the positive, "beautiful" reviews former students gave his real estate courses. Those reviews, it seems, appear to have always been "a central component of a business model that, according to lawsuits and investigators, deceived consumers into handing over thousands of dollars with tantalizing promises of riches," The New York Times reports, citing "hundreds of pages of legal documents, as well as interviews with former students and instructors." And, many former students and instructors say, the glowing reviews were coerced.

Instructors say their income depended on getting high reviews, and, in an usual arrangement for academic courses, students filled out the evaluation forms in front of instructors and were not told they could leave off their names. "I think it's much better when a student puts their name on it," Trump said in a January deposition. Otherwise, "they don't mean anything, actually." Many of the students were supposed to continue working and getting guidance from the instructors and mentors after turning in their signed evaluations, and according to documents made public during litigation, the students were asked to turn in evaluations to get their graduation certificates.

Normally in academic settings, evaluations are anonymous, so students can be frank about their experience, former Trump University consultant Howard E. Haller tells The Times. "No one knows if you even filled it out. The professor sure doesn't know." In interviews, Trump U alumni said that instructors had pleaded for high scores, refused to leave the room until receiving a 5 out of 5 rating, and hounded students until they recanted their low ratings and gave the course top marks.

A lawyer for Trump, Daniel M. Petrocelli, dismissed the complaints. "Folks were not coerced," he said. "They gave overwhelmingly positive reviews because they were being honest about their assessment." Read more at The New York Times. Peter Weber

On Wednesday, U.S. Border Patrol gave reporters a tour of its Clint station in West Texas, described as squalid, overcrowded, lice-infested, and generally "appalling" last week by lawyers who interviewed some of the 250-plus migrant children detained there. Since then, Border Patrol moved the children to a different facility, then brought about 100 back to Clint.

"On Wednesday, the situation in Clint seemed to have improved: Children appeared to be wearing clean clothes, and at least a half dozen hallway monitors were brought in to help watch the 117 children being housed there," from a few months old to nearly 18, The Associated Press reports. The reporters were shown more of the facility than the lawyers but were not allowed to bring in cameras or talk to the children. AP's Cedar Attanasio reports that Border Patrol seems to have done a lot of work in the last five days:

Aaron Hull, head of Border Patrol's El Paso sector, said the reports of child mistreatment were "hurtful" to agents who "are risking their health, their lives, their marriages ... to enforce the rule of law humanely." He confirmed lawyers' reports that the children subsist on instant oatmeal, instant noodles, and microwaved burritos, and said they get a new toothbrush every night.

Earlier Wednesday, the lawyers who represent all migrant children under the Flores settlement asked a federal judge to immediately require inspections and doctor visits at border facilities like Clint, and order the prompt release of children to parents and close relatives. The detained children, classified as unaccompanied minors, are supposed to spend no more than 72 hours in Border Patrol custody, but one of the Flores lawyers, Warren Binford, told The New Yorker that almost none of the children they interviewed at Clint "came across unaccompanied. The United States is taking children away from their family unit and reclassifying them as unaccompanied children. ... And some of them were separated from their parents." Peter Weber

Of all the questions Beto O'Rourke and John Delaney could've gotten during Wednesday night's debates, they somehow ended up with the most pointless.

The two ex-congressmen declined to run for re-election last fall, both presumably in anticipation of their 2020 presidential runs. Yet despite the fact that O'Rourke and Delaney gave up having any say in whether Congress should open an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, they were the only candidates who were asked whether they supported the proceedings.

O'Rourke, a former representative from Texas, has pushed for impeachment time and time again over the past month, and called it "the only way to save this country" on Wednesday. Delaney, who once served in Maryland, meanwhile said he supports House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) decision to wait.

Neither of their opinions will really do anything, though O'Rourke does get ... something ... for turning his impeachment answer into a brief art history lesson on this piece hanging in the Capitol building. Kathryn Krawczyk

Many Democratic voters wanted the 10 candidates on the Democratic debate stage to focus on issues like climate change and gun control, while refraining from focusing too heavily on President Trump. For the most part, that held true. But only Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio didn't mention Trump at all, NBC News reports.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) name-dropped the president most frequently, tallying nine mentions on the evening, with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) next in line at seven. All together, the candidates brought up Trump 35 times in two hours.

Apparently the eight contenders who did mention the president didn't say anything that grabbed Trump's attention, either — at least as of yet. The president had threatened to live-tweet the debate, but he mostly remained quiet aside from talking about how boring the event was and criticizing NBC for experiencing technical difficulties. Tim O'Donnell

The first night of the Democratic debates is now behind us, and incredibly, almost every Democrat performed well. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was widely considered to be one of the big winners, with Jezebel trumpeting it was her night. The New Republic named former Housing Secretary Julián Castro the "big winner." Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee got badly-needed recognition, and social media ate up Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

In fact, the only candidate who seemed to be getting crickets after the debate was former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke:

"Beto is in over his head," The Cut ruled. Even famed pollster Frank Luntz agreed:

That isn't good news for the former Democratic darling, who desperately needed a breakout. O'Rourke is currently polling around 3 percent in RealClearPolitics' aggregate, putting him in sixth place in the more than twenty-person pool. Jeva Lange

Early party primary debates are all about shaking out the differences between the candidates. Perhaps no question did that more starkly on Wednesday night than an inquiry about the biggest geopolitical threat to America. Democrats couldn't agree on an answer, with the 10 candidates giving replies all across the board — and globe.

Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro all gave "China" as all or part of their answers. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren both answered "climate change," which was also given a nod by Castro and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Nuclear weapons were mentioned by Delaney, Booker, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio named Russia. Klobuchar also named Iran as one of her concerns.

But perhaps the biggest applause of all went to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee for his answer:

Watch the full range of answers below. Jeva Lange

Julián Castro is having a moment.

During Wednesday's 2020 Democratic debates, the former Housing and Urban Development secretary got an early applause line in when he was asked about closing the gender pay gap. Castro responded by saying he'd pass the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment — and quickly shot up 2,400 percent in Google search interest since the debates began, Google Trends reported. The Equal Rights Amendment, meanwhile, saw search interest spike 800 percent.

Castro's Google triumph should come with a grain of salt, seeing as he wasn't getting a ton of searches to begin with. In the week leading up to the debates, he wasn't even among the top half of Wednesday candidates in terms of Google searches. Castro was the top searched candidate in barely a handful of counties around the U.S. as well, Google Trends showed.

Of course, no candidate stacks up to pizza. Kathryn Krawczyk