The campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are not both making it out of this latest twist in their cold war alive.

On the eve of the last Democratic presidential debate before the crucial Iowa caucuses early next month, CNN dropped an explosive scoop claiming that in a December 2018 meeting between the two 2020 hopefuls, Sanders said "he did not believe a woman could win."

"The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting," MJ Lee reported. "That evening, Sanders expressed frustration at what he saw as a growing focus among Democrats on identity politics, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation. Warren told Sanders she disagreed with his assessment that a woman could not win, three of the four sources said."

Sanders vehemently denied the allegation, calling it "ludicrous."

It's all but certain that the sources came from Warren's camp. Warren and Sanders were the only ones present at the meeting, and his team would have no incentive to push this story. Yet Warren's campaign refused to comment on the record. This means one of two things: Either Sanders did actually say something resembling the remark, and although she wanted to keep it private, her people went rogue and spilled to CNN anyways, or Warren made it up as a Hail Mary attempt to revive her crumbling campaign.

Either way, she has to go on the record and confirm or deny the story. Anything less, and it immediately looks like she tried to orchestrate the kind of character smear that ends careers in Democratic Party politics. Any equivocation will shred her credibility and could prove fatal to her already flailing campaign.