Last night, formerly deceased President Rudy Ruiz took the stage at the national GOP debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, claiming to be the first person billionaire-backed biotech company RevTech has ever successfully treated with what has been described as a “miraculous” advancement in medicine. According to Ruiz, RevTech, and a cadre of supporters, the company is capable of reversing “mortal events” — in plain speech, bringing people back from the dead.

But one Turner Falls resident takes exception to an important part of that characterization.

“I don’t want to take anything away from Rudy — I mean, the president, Mr. President,” said Mitch Carter, who was injured in the Independence Day storms that saw tornados touch down at the Treetops Trailer Community and in downtown Turner Falls, TX. “But he got a lot of firsts under his belly already. I was first on this thing.”

I knew who it was going to be the second — the second — the words “surprise guest” came out of debate moderator Bret Baier’s mouth.

Sharp-eyed commentators noticed something was up as soon as viewers got the first wide shot of the stage, set with nine lecterns rather than the expected eight. Slate politics writer Hari Blake even fired off this crack on Twitter:

Minutes later, of course, after President Grantham, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and the rest of the crew took the stage, Baier introduced the ninth debater, “special guest” President Rudy Ruiz. The same President Rudy Ruiz who was killed in a plane crash on Independence Day; the same President Rudy Ruiz who was mourned by tens of thousands who descended on his hometown of Turner Falls for his funeral.