Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough was caught lying about White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday morning. Scarborough’s lie–telling his viewers and panel that Bannon had called President Donald Trump a “blundering fool” when Bannon never said that–was so blatant and obnoxious that he was called out by a conventional media reporter who has been on a roll of late publishing unfavorable stories about Bannon.

Scarborough and oh-so-serious sounding co-host Mika Brzezinski were discussing Bannon’s Wednesday interview with American Prospect editor Robert Kuttner. Bannon called Kuttner because he saw in him an ally on trade policy, but the left-wing editor’s past criticisms of Trump’s North Korea rhetoric also made headlines. Last week, Kuttner wrote that “the risk of two arrogant fools blundering into a nuclear exchange is more serious than at any time since October 1962.”

Yet, Scarborough and his panel, which consisted of the usual suspects like Willie Guest, Katty Kay, and Eugene Robinson, spent nearly eight minutes droning on and on about how Bannon had called Trump a “blundering fool” to Kuttner when Bannon did no such thing.

It took Axios political reporter Jonathan Swan, who has been elegantly and efficiently promoting anti-Bannon spin of late, to correct the ignorant panel.

“I just do want to correct one thing that the panel was saying,” Swan said after Scarborough finally brought him into the discussion. “It wasn’t actually Bannon that was calling Trump the arrogant fool. It was the author of the piece.”

If Scarborough is not illiterate, he could have been acting with malice to lie about what Bannon did not say. Or, like many of his panelists, Scarborough could just be a poseur–the type who reads a few snippets and excerpts of a book or a long-form article before a dinner party and acts like he has read the whole thing while conversing with other guests who mistake sounding “smart” for having actual knowledge.

Swan also undercut Scarborough’s tired and desperate “President Bannon” taunt by saying that “the idea that Bannon is some type of puppet master is not true.”

The panel kicks around this blatant lie for about 5 minutes, until @jonathanvswan calls them out pic.twitter.com/z1gSCpdPRH — Scarborough Sucks (@morningjoehater) August 17, 2017

The panel kicks around this blatant lie for about 5 minutes, until @jonathanvswan calls them out pic.twitter.com/z1gSCpdPRH — Joe Scarborough Hypocrisy Alerts 🚨🚨 (@JoeNBC_) August 17, 2017

UNBELIEVABLE. @JoeNBC: Bannon called Trump a “blundering fool.” Guest (correctly): it was the author, not Bannon. Joe: "Same thing." — Joe Scarborough Hypocrisy Alerts 🚨🚨 (@JoeNBC_) August 17, 2017