Tucker Carlson greatly misled his viewers on Thursday by claiming that, at the previous night’s Democratic debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tried to deflect criticism about online abuse from some of his alleged supporters by attributing it to clandestine efforts by Russia to interfere in the 2020 election.

Amidst a long segment where the Fox News host relished the hits taken by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Carlson then turned to Sanders, who now enjoys strong leads in all national polls of the Democratic primary.

“Bernie Sanders is still the frontrunner and if anything, he’s becoming less impressive as he rises in the polls,” Carlson said, before offering his deceptive take on Sanders’ comments at the debate. “Last night he lamely tried to claim that his online supporters, the one harassing opponents on Twitter, might be secret Russian agents trying to sow discord in the Democratic Party. Sanders said that on stage. Unfortunately people were too dumb to notice it. So nobody asked a follow up question.”

Notably, Carlson did not show the relevant clip from Wednesday night’s Democratic debate to prove that Sanders “said that,” unlike he had for almost all of his other analysis recapping the forum.

In fact, Sanders specifically said he was not claiming that Russians were pretending to be his fans to sow discord within the party, although he implied that, if new evidence emerged showing that, it “would not shock me.” Coincidentally, Carlson’s misleading comments came on the same day it was reported that US intelligence agencies have briefed President Donald Trump that Russia is already meddling in the 2020 election.

Below is the full clip of his comments which came during a testy exchange with Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

“If you want to talk to some of the women on my campaign, what you will see is the most ugly sexist, racist attacks that are — I won’t even describe them here, they’re so disgusting,” Sanders said. “Let me say something else, not being too paranoid. All of us remember 2016. And what we meant — what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our election — and divide us up. I’m not saying that’s happening. But it would not shock me, I saw some of those Tweets regarding the Culinary Workers Union. I have a 30-year, 100% pro-union voting record. You think I would support or anybody supports me would be attacking union leaders? It’s not thinkable.”

Sanders is clearly dismissing the idea of Russian interference in his comments, while not precluding new evidence that could emerge. Carlson, however, is engaging in a clear, bad faith summary of that statement, trying to use that caveat to say Sanders is somehow buying into a grand conspiracy theory about Russia and Trump. It’s a shamefully misleading manipulation of the truth, and the fact that Carlson didn’t even have the courage to let his viewers judge Sanders’ comments for themselves, suggests he knows it is too.

Watch the clips above, via Fox News and MSNBC.

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