The only thing worse than the passel of lies spewed by Fox & Friends as they blamed President Barack Obama and glorified Donald Trump over Russia’s meddling in our 2016 election was Trump’s unscrupulous appreciation.

The Curvy Couch opened their show by falsely suggesting that Trump’s claims about the 2016 election being rigged indicated he was worried about Russian meddling - and that Obama’s refutation indicated he was negligent.

Aidan McLaughlin at Mediaite got it exactly right:

In fact, [Trump] blamed almost everyone else: he claimed that “Crooked Hillary” was rigging the election, along with the DNC, the “dishonest media,” “phony polls” intended to depress his voters, and, most frequently, African-Americans committing voter fraud. Never Russia.

Despite Fox & Friends falsely setting up Obama’s remarks as referring to Russia, the president’s comments in his October 2016 presser were aimed at Trump’s latest claims that the election was being rigged against him by the U.S. political system. Those claims by then-candidate Trump were widely condemned at the time, even by members of Trump’s own party, including Paul Ryan.

The shockingly deceitful conflation of Trump’s claims that African-Americans were committing widespread voter fraud, with the very real crisis of Russian election interference is nauseating, even by Fox & Friends standards.

Cohost Ainsley Earhardt, who claims she wants to be seen as a "tough journalist" and not "in the tank for Trump," gushed with more flimflam. She called the sound bite “another example about how President Trump was right” because “he predicted this.”

“It just reminded me of how in touch he is with the American people” not-in-the-tank Earhardt added.

They moved on from that deceit to suggest that it was proof Trump did not collude with Russia. “Why is the mainstream media pushing the collusion?” Earhardt continued. “Is it because they just don’t like this president?” she “asked.” It was yet another example of her hard-hitting journalism.

Cohost Steve Doocy claimed that Russians spent too little to have an impact on the election.

Cohost Brian Kilmeade seemed to suggest that special counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation is impeding the U.S. from taking action against Russia. “I sense that if it ended right now, we could go to attacking back and preventing this happening again,” Kilmeade said, without making it clear what he meant by “it.” But his next words hinted that he meant the Mueller investigation: “But unfortunately, people are waiting to see what Robert Mueller is coming up with next and now they’re starting to worry about the business aspect of people in and around the Trump organization. The last one rumored to be in the line of fire is Jared Kushner. So that’s a distraction that keeps us working on preventing the next Russia attack.”

That is just as fraudulent as the Obama clip "interpretation." For one thing, Congress has legislated sanctions that Trump has refused to impose. If Trump is too distracted to sign off on them, he should resign from a job that requires walking and chewing gum. Furthermore, after a year in office, Trump has not given the FBI any specific directives to prevent further meddling. Lastly, this is as absurd as the claim last week that the Russia investigation caused the Florida school shooting. Because surely the FBI and our other counterintelligence agencies can walk the Russia investigation and chew the gum of prevention at the same time, even if Trump can't.

But there was one person who loved these lies: Donald Trump. A little later this morning, he tweeted his appreciation:

Thank you to @foxandfriends for the great timeline on all of the failures the Obama Administration had against Russia, including Crimea, Syria and so much more. We are now starting to win again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2018

Watch the deliberate deception below, from the February 20, 2018 Fox & Friends.