On the eve of January’s Democratic presidential debate, CNN published a potential bombshell of a story. Bernie Sanders, unnamed sources alleged, warned Elizabeth Warren in December 2018 that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. If true, the story would destroy the Vermont senator’s cultural cache among the identity politics Left. But if Warren equivocated enough with a modicum of hesitation with her recognition of the story during the debate, it would prove fatal to her candidacy.

Not only did Warren pussyfoot around the allegation, but she also tried to weaponize it to maximize identity politics. When asked point-blank about the charge Sanders had vehemently denied, Warren didn’t say that Sanders was lying. Instead, she said that she “disagreed” with his alleged assertion at the time, and then waxed poetic for a minute about women’s electoral viability in 2018.