When United States Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., debated Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes, Wisconsin's lieutenant governor, at Marquette University's Varsity Theater on Thursday night, he was met with laughter when he alleged that he was "set up" by Federal Bureau of Investigation during its investigation into Russian misinformation two years ago.
"Johnson was informed at an FBI briefing in 2020 that he was the target of Russian disinformation as part of a campaign to make him useful to the Kremlin, the senator confirmed to The Washington Post last year," Yahoo! News explained on Friday.
The crowd did not buy it. On Saturday, Johnson appeared on Fox News and was questioned why his audience refused to take him seriously.
Host Brian Kilmeade noted to Johnson that "when you said you were set up by the FBI, the crowd laughed." He then asked the senator, "who was in that crowd, and have they been following the news? Do you want to put that in context?"
Johnson blamed higher education.
"Well I think they let in a bunch of college students. We were supposed to both get fifty audience members and the crowd was much larger than that. So, my guess, they're college students who, let's face it, our colleges today aren't exactly teaching history. They're really not talking about the relevant things that students really oughta learn in college," Johnson said. "They're being taught leftist propaganda, unfortunately."
Watch below or at this link.
Johnson claims debate audience laughed at him because the audience was comprised of college students who have been exposed to leftist propaganda pic.twitter.com/hSQkTmgS5h
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 16, 2022
