During the February 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson allowed author Steve Adubato to misrepresent President Obama's February 24 address to a joint session of Congress in order to claim that Obama engaged in “class warfare.”

After Carlson played a clip from Obama's address, Adubato, the author of What Were They Thinking? Crisis Communication -- the Good, the Bad, and the Totally Clueless, claimed, “There it is. Listen, I hate to call it class warfare. It's class warfare.” Adubato later asserted that Obama is “smart enough to know that you can't say negative things about the people, even though a lot of people made the bad loan -- a lot of people bought houses they shouldn't have bought because they can't afford them.” Carlson responded: “Good point.” In fact, contrary to Adubato's suggestion that Obama did not mention people who “bought houses they shouldn't have bought because they can't afford them,” Obama stated in his address that "[p]eople bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway."

From Obama's February 24 address to a joint session of Congress:

The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.

In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.

From the February 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

CARLSON: Let's talk about another part of the speech that you thought worked, because when he talked about the banks, which a lot of people have a lot of anger about right now, here's what he said.

OBAMA [video clip]: I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you. I get it. ... That's what this is about. It's not about helping banks. It's about helping people.

STEVE DOOCY (co-host): All right, sir.

ADUBATO: There it is. Listen, I hate to call it class warfare. It's class warfare.

DOOCY: Sure.

ADUBATO: He's saying, “Listen” -- and the banks have screwed up. The banks have not given out the credit that they should after they got that TARP money -- but here's the thing: Where are people getting their money? From the banks.

He's smart enough to know that you can't say negative things about the people, even though a lot of people made the bad loan -- a lot of people bought houses they shouldn't have bought because they can't afford them.

CARLSON: Good point.

ADUBATO: It's not the people, it's the banks. It's not the people, it's the CEOs. They took all the money they shouldn't have.

Listen, he's actually correct to a degree, but he's smart enough to know that you draw that line down the middle and say, “I'm with the people; I'm not with the banks.” It's good rhetoric. It's good theater. It played well.

DOOCY: All right, there you got analysis on how he performed.