Was this a deepfake Trump? No, it was really him...

I couldn’t believe my eyes, writes Jon Sopel, when post-Iowa Trump appeared to be magnanimous in victory, conciliatory almost. But it wasn’t long before he cast off the cloak of humility and was back on the ugly, racist attack, orange in tooth and claw

All smiles: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign event in Atkinson, New Hampshire (AP)

The polls were right. Trump smashed it. Left his rivals gasping for air in the dust. And made the most powerful statement that you could possibly make that the Republican Party is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is the Republican Party. Back in 2016, the last time he ran in Iowa and lost to Ted Cruz, the same could not be said.

And with victory came a strange new tune. On stage, after the networks called the result for him, Trump sounded – and I can’t believe I’m writing this – almost magnanimous, conciliatory, unifying even. He spoke about how the nation needed to come together; how it didn’t matter whether you were a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, the United States of America was more important. I thought at first, I might be looking at some deepfake generated by AI. But, no – it was him.

However, don’t be gulled, Donald Trump is still red in tooth and claw. Well, orange, actually. Indeed, the day after the Iowa result and he was in a courtroom in New York (where else?), there was a photo of him waving on the street outside – in the foreground is one of his US Secret Service agents. The bodyguard looks perfectly normal. Trump, on the other hand, looks as though he has been irradiated.